How a cosmetic physician turned a three-month project into a 15-year journey building clinic management software for the medical aesthetics industry
When Dr. Toby Makmel and his partner estimated it would take three months to build clinic management software for their aesthetic clinic, they had no idea they were embarking on a 15-year journey that would span 18 countries and eight languages. What started as an internal solution to manage their growing paperwork has evolved into Clinicminds, a specialized platform serving the unique needs of cosmetic physicians worldwide.
From paper chaos to digital solution
The story begins with a common problem in the rapidly growing medical aesthetics field. As Dr. Makmel, a cosmetic physician with over 20 years of experience, explains: “We started to see that working on paper isn’t possible anymore. It was too big, it was too much, it was chaos.”
The medical aesthetics industry was experiencing explosive growth, but the available software solutions were designed for hospitals or general practitioners working with insurance companies. There simply wasn’t a good product tailored for private medical aesthetic clinics operating in this specialized niche.
“We didn’t think about a product at all,” Makmel recalls. “We just understood that we needed to build something for ourselves, for our clinic to grow, to be efficient and to solve a lot of problems in the operation.”
The power of hyper-specialization
What sets Clinicminds apart is its unwavering focus on a single vertical. Despite numerous requests from physical therapists, dentists, and even veterinarians to adapt their software, the company has consistently declined to expand beyond medical aesthetics.
“We believe in focus,” Makmel explains. “If you want to become one of the best in your niche, then you really have to focus on that product. We understood the aesthetic part the best because we really developed from our practice.”
This hyper-specialization strategy has proven successful, with clients consistently providing feedback that they can tell the software was developed by practitioners who understand their workflow. The platform combines medical needs, recording requirements, regulatory compliance, and commercial functionality in a way that feels natural to aesthetic medicine practitioners.
The challenge of “accidental entrepreneurs”
One of the most insightful aspects of Makmel’s experience is his characterization of his typical customers as “accidental entrepreneurs.” These are medical professionals who attended medical school and later decided to start businesses, but were never taught marketing, business operations, efficiency, or sales.
“They went to medical school and at some point they said I’m going to start a business. But I’ve never been taught about marketing, about business, about efficiency,” Makmel explains. “Our clients are great, but they’re accidental entrepreneurs and they need education on why software is so important for the clinic to thrive.”
This insight shapes everything from Clinicminds’ educational content strategy to their implementation approach. Rather than simply providing software and setup guides, the company offers consultancy during implementation, helping clinics optimize their workflows and understand the commercial benefits of digital operations.
Building features that matter
Clinicminds’ approach to product development centers on understanding the story behind feature requests rather than simply building what customers ask for. “People can request a feature, but there’s always a question behind the question,” Makmel notes. “Sometimes we can create even better products if we understand the use case.”
The company follows an 80/20 rule, building features that serve the majority of their customer base while maintaining their core philosophy: everything must be simple, straightforward, and robust. They’ve learned that practitioners earn their money in treatment rooms, not behind desks, so reliability takes precedence over frequent feature updates.
Strategic integration over internal development
Rather than building an “all-in-one” solution, Clinicminds strategically integrates with best-in-class tools for specific functions. “We don’t believe in building something that others built way better than we can,” Makmel explains, citing integrations with MailChimp for email marketing and Stripe for payments.
This approach allows them to focus resources on their core competency while providing clients access to superior specialized tools. The integration strategy extends to addressing specific industry challenges, such as reducing no-shows through targeted deposit requirements for different treatment types.
Pricing strategy and customer education
The company learned early that their target market lacks reference points for software pricing, having primarily worked in hospital environments where all technology was provided. This led to an important pricing evolution when they doubled their prices overnight and discovered that not only did no customers leave, but sales didn’t drop.
“We were able to keep up our standards, provide the support and onboarding that we’re really keen on,” Makmel explains. The experience reinforced their belief in transparent, all-inclusive pricing rather than freemium models with storage limitations that would be particularly problematic for practices requiring extensive photo documentation.
AI implementation with purpose
As artificial intelligence becomes ubiquitous in software, Clinicminds focuses on AI applications that solve real problems rather than adding AI features for marketing purposes. Their primary AI implementation addresses documentation, one of the most time-consuming aspects of medical practice.
“Doctors are lazy and don’t want to write down on paper or type,” Makmel admits. “AI is never lazy. It will document everything you’re saying, everything you’re doing and everything you’re telling your patient.”
The AI transcription system automatically organizes consultation content into appropriate sections of treatment records, improving both efficiency and compliance. Future AI development focuses on helping “accidental entrepreneurs” understand their business metrics and receive actionable insights for marketing and operational decisions.
Lessons for management software founders
- Focus beats breadth: Resisting the temptation to expand into adjacent verticals allowed the company to build deeper expertise and stronger customer relationships.
- Domain expertise matters: Having firsthand experience in the target industry provided crucial insights into workflow requirements and customer pain points.
- Education is part of the product: When serving customers who aren’t naturally tech-savvy or business-oriented, educational content and consultative implementation become competitive advantages.
- Integration over innovation: Building integrations with specialized tools often provides better customer value than developing inferior internal alternatives.
- Pricing confidence: Understanding the true value delivered to customers enables confident pricing strategies that support sustainable growth.
The Future of specialized aesthetic software
As the medical aesthetics industry continues to grow globally and face increasing regulatory requirements, the need for specialized software solutions will only increase. Clinicminds’ success demonstrates that serving a narrow niche exceptionally well can be more valuable than building broadly applicable solutions.
The company’s approach of combining deep domain expertise with strategic technology choices offers a blueprint for other entrepreneurs considering specialized management software. Sometimes the best way to build a successful software company isn’t to cast the widest net, but to understand one industry better than anyone else.
For healthcare entrepreneurs and software founders alike, the Clinicminds story illustrates that recognizing and serving the unique needs of “accidental entrepreneurs” can create lasting competitive advantages in an increasingly crowded software landscape.
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