A fledgling Manchester entrepreneur was inspired to found his startup after suffering a football injury one weekend.
Marketer Wesley Clarke-Sullivan injured his back playing five-a-side and was unable to move the next day. He spent hours trawling through clinic websites, manually comparing availability just to find the earliest appointment nearby.
“The initial idea came from a friend who works at a major private healthcare insurer. He explained that many policyholders struggle to book appointments – not because care isn’t available, but because the process is confusing, fragmented and stressful,” he explained to BusinessCloud. “When patients can’t easily use their insurance, they’re less likely to renew.
“The football injury experience then made the problem very real.”
Redundancy
Clarke-Sullivan had 15 years of marketing experience behind him, seven of them at LifeSaver, a UK manufacturer of portable water purification systems.
“I joined as a marketing and eCommerce manager but ended up wearing many hats, from supporting product development to managing governmental and NGO relationships with organisations such as Oxfam and UNICEF,” he says.
“In my time there I overhauled the consumer brand and scaled global eCommerce sales, increasing annual online revenue by more than tenfold.
“[However] as a result of changes within the business, I took redundancy from LifeSaver and it felt like the right moment for a new challenge, even though it came in the same year my second child was born.
“Aria arrived in May 2025, I finished at LifeSaver in September, and MediMo was born shortly after.”
How MediMo works
MediMo, short for ‘medical appointments in moments’, exists to help people find and book private healthcare appointments quickly, when they actually need them. The platform already had a year in development and testing before launch.
People can compare prices, reviews and availability, enabling them to choose a specialist with confidence and book directly with them through live integration with existing practice booking systems.
“If a patient books through MediMo, the appointment goes straight into the clinic’s own system, exactly as if it had been booked via their website. There’s no additional admin or maintenance required from the clinic,” says Clarke-Sullivan.
“A good comparison is Skyscanner. Just as it pulls together flights from multiple airlines, MediMo brings together appointment availability from different clinics, making the search and booking process far easier for patients.”
The bootstrapped platform currently focuses on physiotherapy, osteopathy and chiropractic services across the North West, with 43 practices already signed up.
“Building a marketplace means solving the classic cold start problem of attracting both providers and patients at the same time,” Clarke-Sullivan continues. “My approach has been to focus first on supply, building strong coverage in a specific niche and geography before scaling demand.
“At this level of coverage, we typically have between 80 and 100 appointments available to book within the next 48 hours, which is ideal for patients looking to be seen quickly.
“Now that coverage in Manchester has reached a critical mass, we’re starting to actively market to patients and expect to see increased traffic and bookings as a result. This phase will also allow us to learn more about user behaviour and refine the booking experience further.”
Expansion plans
The aim is to expand into additional UK cities, with an angel investment round planned for Q4 2026 and venture capital funding potentially sought following that.
“By the end of next year, my goal is to have around 250 clinics on MediMo and to be consistently generating around 20 bookings per day. That level of activity would demonstrate that the model scales beyond a single city,” says Clarke-Sullivan.
“We also plan to expand into additional services, starting with podiatry and women’s and men’s health.”
The founder says he was fortunate to grow up around entrepreneurship, as his mother founded her own marketing agency when he was young: “Running a business was always something I saw as an option.
“Being made redundant definitely pushed me towards wanting more control over my own destiny going forward, but more than anything, I’m motivated by the challenge of building something new and solving a real problem.
“I’ve found it quite a rollercoaster so far. There are days when small wins feel huge, and others when progress feels slow and self-doubt creeps in. I just try to focus on what’s directly in front of me, rather than the size of the end goal, which can feel overwhelming.
“One thing I do know is that I no longer get the Sunday night dread about work. I’m excited to get started each day, which I think is a good sign.”
Beatle
Clarke-Sullivan studied at Liverpool Institute for Performing Arts – founded by Sir Paul McCartney – and aspired to be a songwriter and artist.
“In my final year, I was lucky enough to have a one-to-one songwriting workshop with Paul McCartney himself, where I played him one of my songs.
“It was a surreal experience; I’ll never forget him describing my song as ‘groovy’!”
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