Prepare to Repair - with Alec Snow (PreActiv)

In this episode of The Reflective Impact Entrepreneurs, uMe speaks with Alec Snow, co-founder of PreActive, a health-tech impact venture delivering dynamic, individualised prehabilitation for people preparing for cancer or surgical treatment. What began with Alec and his co-founder Rebecca Allen seeing the same problem from different sides of medicine became an attempt to rethink when recovery starts. As doctors, they could see how much a patient’s physical and psychological condition could influence their ability to cope with treatment, yet there was often little patients could actively do to prepare. The evidence for prehabilitation already existed. The challenge was how to make it accessible at scale. Alec shares how they started with a rudimentary prototype built with university students, put it in front of patients, and used what they learned to take the next step. That rhythm of testing and learning has continued as PreActive has grown —from listening to patients and clinicians, to redesigning parts of the platform, running clinical research, and deciding which opportunities not to pursue. We talk about: • Why preparing for treatment can change what recovery looks like • Starting with a simple prototype when you don’t have the resources to build the finished product • Why negative feedback can be more useful than celebrating what already works • Co-designing with patients and clinicians rather than assuming you know what they need • Using clinical trials and evidence without trying to prove more than you need to • Finding early signals that show whether an intervention may be working • The tension between digital scale and digital exclusion • Why saying no to adjacent opportunities can protect an impact venture’s focus • Learning to be comfortable with uncertainty as an impact entrepreneur It’s a conversation about preparation, experimentation, evidence, focus, reflection and scaling impact. If you’re interested in impact ventures, startup learning, and what it really looks like to build something that does good and does well, this one is for you. — Episode Links • PreActiv https://www.preactiv.co.uk • Alec Snow on LinkedIn   / alec-snow-b85358157   — The Reflective Impact Entrepreneurs podcast is brought to you by HumanityAssist - supporting founders building ventures that help humanity thrive: https://www.humanityassist.com — Hosted by Umesh (uMe) Pandya   / umeshpandya   Original podcast music by Nimz — #ImpactEntrepreneurship #HealthTech #FounderJourney #SocialImpact #ImpactVentures