Zocdoc: Oliver Kharraz

In 2007, three friends set out to address a common frustration: the long waits and scheduling hassles of booking a doctor’s appointment. But soon after launching their online scheduling platform Zocdoc, Oliver Kharraz, Cyrus Massoumi and Nick Ganju ran into a classic chicken-and-egg problem: they had to show potential patients that doctors were available for bookings, while frantically convincing reluctant doctors to sign up. The company solved this challenge and started to grow, but then faced an even bigger hurdle: an identity crisis over its business model, which caused a major rift between its partners. Now Zocdoc is going through another transformation: offering video appointments in the age of COVID-19.