Meet Zanda’s (previously Power Diary’s) Founders: Paul and Damien Adler
Australian brothers, Paul and Damien Adler are the duos responsible for Zanda, a practice management software used in 23 countries around the world by thousands of health practitioners.
They started thirteen years ago with only a handful of users, but a strong determination to develop a solution to support and empower practice owners to become more successful. From the beginning, their approach has been to step back and ask important questions like:
“How can practitioners have a successful practice and a life?”
“How do we build a system that empowers practice owners?”
Together, Damien and Paul, with their unique backgrounds, training, and experience, combined their talents to develop industry-leading practice management software. Their vision was, and still is, to create the ultimate solution that makes running a health practice easier, simpler and more rewarding.
What is the Zanda offering?
While the definition of success is different for every practice owner, most would agree that there’s a lot more to building a successful practice than just seeing clients. Of course, getting clients through the door is essential, but if practice owners don’t have the right systems in place, it doesn’t matter how good the service is; they will struggle to manage and grow the practice. Damien and Paul know that most practice owners are well intentioned, but are also stuck on a treadmill of administrative overhead that keeps them from having a bigger impact. Their goal with Zanda is to change that and truly empower practice owners in a way that frees their time and gives them more capacity.
Practice owners need a system which provides robust scheduling, automated reminders, easy invoicing, simple payment collection, note templates, and more. This is the essential administrative backbone that health practice can build their business around, a system that can streamline internal processes so that practitioners can focus on seeing clients.
That’s where Zanda is in a league of its own as a practice management system. It’s a centralised system that replaces a number of standalone options making it easy to manage:
- Calendars
- Waiting list
- Billing software
- Telehealth
- Medicare/health insurance claiming
- Clinical Notes
- Client database
- Communication templates
- Reporting
- Backups and much, much more.
That’s all well and good, but there are other practice management software options available, so why are so many practice owners moving over to Zanda?
Because Paul, Damien, and the Zanda team have a unique combination of skills and insights that direct the creation of the system so that it becomes increasingly simpler to run a profitable healthcare practice.
What makes the Zanda story unique?
A story of perfect synergies
In most cases, tech start-ups are created by someone who identifies a gap in the market and develops a solution to meet that need. But the problem is usually that the person either has a background in the industry, in this case, healthcare, and hires a tech team to make it happen. Or, on the flip side, it might be a tech person who identifies an exciting niche opportunity but doesn’t have a deep background and on-the-ground understanding of the industry and may not be able to identify with the end-user.
Both approaches have their shortcomings; they’ll either end up building a tool that’s robust but doesn’t meet the market’s needs. Or, conversely, they end up with a tool that tries to meet the needs of its client base but isn’t robust and scalable because the IT team didn’t have the skills and direction necessary to build a solid system that customers could trust to run their businesses on.
Clearly, both deep industry knowledge AND technical expertise are equally important.
It’s unusual to find a piece of software that holds both sides of this equation in balance.
And that’s what makes the Zanda so unique.
Paul’s technology background and history of growing successful technology start-ups has fuelled the engine of Zanda, while Damien, with his experience running his own successful psychology practice, guides the software to meet the changing needs of health practitioners in private practice.
Their vision was to build a software that is flexible enough to change with evolving technical and client requirements, but robust enough to reliably serve their network of customers across the world.
The focus for Zanda is to deliver the essence of what matters most: an intuitive, easy-to-use system that streamlines and automates the management of a health practice.
Technology driven by real people
You might think that, with Paul’s focus on technology, that the people aspect might be overlooked. But, both Paul and Damien know that great businesses come from great people, and building a strong team has always been their top priority. The Zanda community extends from the close-knit team of professionals that work on the software and support our customers, to the thousands of Zanda clients around the world that rely on the software.
This approach has led to the formation of their world-class support team and active Facebook support group for Zanday subscribers. Access to support 24/7 makes it easy for customers to get the answers they need and is just another way that Paul and Damien continue to invest in the success of health practices.
A clear formula for empowered health practices
Over the years, Paul and Damien have spoken with thousands of practice owners which has further clarified their goal to create empowered and powerful health practices that benefit the practice owners, their teams and their communities. They’ve developed a formula for “empowered health practices” which includes 6 components that work together to make practices truly successful. This formula informs the direction of the software and the growth of the company.
Zanda Fun Facts
Fun Fact #1
Zanda was initially adapted from another practice management software that Damien and his wife started using in their practice after an extensive search for software with the key features their practice needed. The software was already helping their team of practitioners, but he saw a lot more potential for it to be even better. So he persuaded Paul to come on board and then in 2008, they purchased the technology outright.
Fun Fact #2
Damien initially convinced Paul to take on the Zanda project because he realised how difficult it was to find the right system and thought that with some more changes, it could be a big help to other practice owners. However, he had no idea that Zanda would grow to support thousands of health practitioners in countries all over the world!
Fun Fact #3
Zanda was originally named “Pencil Me In”. You can see the original website and a screenshot of the calendar view here. Hopefully, you’ll agree that we’ve made some improvements since then!
Fun Fact #4
Both Damien and Paul have been bitten by the travel bug. Every year Damien, who’s based in Australia, likes to head off with his wife and daughter for a few weeks to explore a different part of the world.
Meanwhile Paul has settled in a small town in France where he and his family spend their free time hiking, skiing, and enjoying the outdoors.
Meet the Founders
Paul Adler
Serial Technology Entrepreneur and Zanda Co-Founder
If you want to get Paul excited, ask him about what tech ideas he has to help businesses thrive. And, when you’ve exhausted that topic, you can move on to mountaineering and the next mountain he plans to summit.
Paul has been included on the BRW Fast 100 list three times (100 Fastest growing companies in Australia) and won the Young Entrepreneur of the Year Award, the Telstra & Victorian Government Small Business of Year Award, the Age Best IT Business award, and the My Business Young Guns in Business Award. He has also served as a member of the Federal Government Small Business Advisory Council for five years and has been featured in various publications.
However, the hat that Paul wears most proudly is head of technology and development at Zanda. He’s constantly innovating to make the software as user-friendly and intuitive as possible while adding an increasingly comprehensive feature-set to empower health practices.
Paul is also an avid cyclist, skier, and high-altitude mountaineer – even summiting Mt Everest in 2007. These days, if he’s not behind his computer, you’ll find him in the French Alps adventuring with his wife and children.
Damien Adler
Psychology Practice Owner and Zanda Co-Founder
Damien’s natural love for people extends to his family, his profession, and Zanda, the software that he co-founded. His role as head of Customer Support and Community perfectly reflects his priorities for the software.
Damien has been a registered psychologist since 2003 and has a background in health administration, previously holding senior positions in the public health sector. He and his wife, also a psychologist, have built a busy group private practice which is where he first discovered his passion for using technology to make life easier for health practitioners.
Damien is known publicly through his 10+ years of regular guest segments on ABC Radio, as a public speaker and corporate trainer, and as a contributor for various TV, radio and print outlets.
When he’s not working, you’ll usually find Damien outdoors in his veggie garden, engaged in an endless list of DIY projects, or off biking and exploring with his family.
So, if you were wondering about how a practice management system gains traction and success overnight, spoiler alert: it doesn’t.
This intuitive, user-friendly software with its impressive (and growing) feature set is loved by thousands worldwide and gets consistent 5* ratings. But, it wouldn’t have got to this point without the tireless work of Paul and Damien, going back over many years. Not to mention the years before that running a practice and building other technology businesses!
If you’d like to know more about our founding duo, check out these videos:
You can also see more interviews that Paul and Damien have given over the years on our media page here.