Why we bootstrapped 8 Scribe

Free sign-ups and a year of committed revenue

A free AI scribe still costs money to run. The company pays to process every consult and staff every support queue. For a venture-backed company pursuing rapid growth, a free plan buys adoption and an annual contract secures a year of revenue. More users and more committed revenue make for a strong investor update.

Heidi is a clear example. It offers free transcription and announced US$340 million in financing, including US$240 million earmarked for growth. Its free plan excludes practice-system integrations and priority support. Heidi puts Nookal and Cliniko connections on paid practice plans and bills Practice subscriptions annually.

In November, Heidi’s CEO announced a cut of about 18% of staff globally and said more customer support would move into the product. A support model is a business decision. On a full clinic day, when a note won’t file, that decision determines who is there to help.

We earn the next month

I bootstrapped 8 Scribe. We have no outside investors. You pay us to get your clinical notes done, and that’s the work we do. We build 8 Scribe in Melbourne and Sydney for allied health practitioners. When a template needs adjusting or a Nookal or Cliniko connection needs setting up, you can come straight to me. We work through the setup your clinic actually uses.

8 Scribe drafts the note in your existing template, suggests body chart marks from the consult, and files to Nookal or Cliniko in one tap. That takes typing and copying out of the gap between back-to-back patients. The founding price is A$59 per clinician per month, usually A$79, GST included. Direct filing is included on the monthly plan, and you can cancel anytime.

My rule for this work is 脚踏实地，把事情做好. Keep your feet on the ground and do the work properly. In healthcare, that means getting the details right in the note the next practitioner will read.

Your filed notes belong in your patient records

A venture fund spreads risk across a portfolio. A clinic has one record for each patient, and the next practitioner needs it at the next appointment. Keeping that record available is part of doing the job properly.

Once you file a note to Nookal or Cliniko, it’s in the patient record in your practice system. If you stop using 8 Scribe, those filed notes stay there.

Mixed-language consultations show what that means

In a fictional consult, a patient says, “It only hurts when I 上楼梯, and it’s worse on the left.” In your English note, that reads “Patient reports pain only when climbing stairs, worse on the left.” A switch in language halfway through a sentence is part of a normal consult for many practitioners. We built for it.

Heidi’s help centre labels mixed-language transcription beta. 8 Scribe supports it today. In AssemblyAI’s published benchmark, the base speech model behind 8 Scribe had the lowest word error rate on each of the five long-form code-switching tests. It averaged 6.5%, compared with 33.4% for the OpenAI model and 37.0% for the Google model tested.

The chart compares speech models on transcription of five long-form test sets that pair English with German, Spanish, French, Italian and Portuguese. Heidi’s beta status comes from its own help centre.

Try it with the template you already use

Bring your own template to the 10-day free trial. Run a fictional follow-up the way you normally speak, then see what lands in your template and how it files into your practice system. For help setting up, talk to me directly.