appointmed: How Patrick Inzinger Manages 2,500 Therapists with 7.5 People
Volume #24 of "Happy Bootstrapping" Newsletter
Patrick Inzinger and three co-founders completely bootstrapped appointmed – the first four years without salary. Today, over 2,500 practices use the therapist software. With only 7.5 full-time employees, they generate seven-figure revenue, with 70% of growth coming from referrals.
This is a summary of Episode 135 of the “Happy Bootstrapping” Podcast (German).
The Founding Story: From Doctor's Appointment to Software
In 2014, Patrick sat with his longtime friend Bernhard on a Viennese terrace. "I need to book a doctor's appointment," Patrick said – and from that emerged the idea for an online booking platform. But the first customer conversations quickly revealed: "The actual problem isn't the booking at all, the actual problem is the practice management software behind it."
The four founders – Patrick (Product Design), Bernhard (Backend), Christopher (Frontend), and Mario (Marketing) – started as a side project. The first years were brutal: in 2016 they made 17,000 euros in annual revenue, in 2020 just 40,000 euros. "We were lucky that all four were very successful in their own freelance work," Patrick explains the cross-financing.
The breakthrough came in 2018/2019 with a radical decision: focus on therapists instead of doctors. Today, appointmed serves practices from individual therapists to group practices with 60 employees – 60% in Austria, 40% in Germany.
The Business Model: Premium Support as USP
appointmed offers complete practice management: appointment calendar, patient records, treatment documentation, billing, online booking, and video consultation. Pricing starts at 45 euros/month (Mini package) and 85 euros/month (Basic package).
"Customer support isn't really a software feature, but it's a feature of the company," Patrick emphasizes. The numbers are impressive:
Response time: 5 minutes 30 seconds (competitors: 2 days)
3,500-3,800 support cases annually
70% of growth through referrals
30% annual growth for five years
They deliberately offer no free accounts: "You're just buying yourself a ton of support with that."
Marketing and Biggest Challenges
After an expensive failure – 75,000 euros for an unsuccessful Head of Sales – appointmed now relies on content marketing. They run two podcasts (hashtag Praxis and hashtag Physio), an online magazine, and have over 200 customer testimonials on their website. "We really went door to door through all of Vienna with our flyers," Patrick recalls the beginnings.
The biggest challenge was patience: enduring four years without salary while financing other projects on the side. A mentor tip almost ruined them: "If you look at our growth curve today, you can see exactly the point where we hired her [Head of Sales]. That's exactly the point where the curve goes flat."
The tech stack is deliberately lean: JavaScript, Next.js, TypeScript, and Angular. The team has worked completely remotely since day 1 with Basecamp as the central tool. Health data is stored GDPR-compliant on AWS.
Patrick's Learnings from 10 Years of Bootstrapping:
Don't blindly follow mentors – "they had no idea about this dimension"
Staying small has advantages – "I don't need a management level in between"
Support can be a competitive advantage
With four founders, someone always pushes the others
Freedom is more important than rapid growth
"Working is fun," Patrick summarizes. Despite several acquisition offers, the team wants to continue. With Avitu, they're already building an international sister product – this time with the right focus from the start.
What I Learned as an Interviewer
Patrick's radical honesty about the tough years impressed me. Enduring four years without salary shows real commitment. I was particularly surprised by the 70% referral rate – in an industry where you might think therapists would keep their "secret weapon" to themselves. The conscious decision to stay small ("The goal for us is always to keep the company as small as possible") is refreshingly different in a growth-obsessed world.
Happy Bootstrapping is a German podcast where I interview bootstrapped founders, indie hackers, and solopreneurs about their startup journeys.
Over the years, I've connected with many successful entrepreneurs who have built e-commerce shops, SaaS platforms, mobile apps, content businesses, or hybrid models.
Furthermore I am a bootstrapper myself and growing my DevOps-as-a-Sercice and Web Operations Company “We Manage”.