Hustle Awards 2026 Special: Dr Leya Luhar, winner of the Early Stage Innovation Award

0:01Welcome back to The Serial Entrepreneur. I'm your host, Anna Wood. Today I'm joined by Lea Luhar, the founder of OSCE Toolbox. We discuss the importance of feedback when building a product, surrounding yourself with a strong support network, and winning the Early Stage Innovation Award at the Hustle Awards 2026. Let's dig in. Podcast today, how are you? I'm good, thank you. How are you? I'm really good thank you great to have you on yeah it's great to be yeah really excited great so we begin every podcast with our signature icebreaker question which is what is your favorite breakfast cereal and why oh okay so mine is actually Wootabix chocolate minis which it's quite an unhealthy cereal but it's just so much fun like I get so much joy out when you break into like a chocolate chip.

0:56Honestly I get it I think my favourite currently is this kind of it's called like triple chocolate crunch and it it feels healthy although it's got a load of actual bits of chocolate in so every time I get a mouthful that's got a load of chocolate and I'm like oh this is so good. So would you be able to introduce yourself and tell me a bit about your background? Yes so my name is Leah I'm born and raised in Leicester and I'm a newly qualified doctor just graduated from the University of Leicester starting work actually in two days time so yeah and I actually am the founder of OSCE Toolbox I started it two and a half years ago OSCE Toolbox is a revision platform for pharmacy students to help them become more competent confident and career ready and we mainly focus on preparing them for an exam called the OSCEs which are like a role play exam where they might have to do things like explain how to take medication to an actor who pretends to be a patient like they would have to do as an after pharmacist um so um these exams are commonly very like anxiety inducing which is why we we target those exams specifically and try to help pharmacists prepare for those and as a side effect they often become much better clinicians as well so yeah yeah fantastic so you spoke about oski toolbox which is the business you founded could you talk a bit more about the platform yeah so the platform has now reached over 5 000 pharmacy students that have registered users across the uk and the main thing that we offer on the platform is scenarios that students can use to practice all of our scenarios have been through they've been written by somebody with a pharmacy background and then they go through two qualified pharmacists to be reviewed and then a student tester who rates it on a few different metrics and then it goes through myself before being published so it's very rigorous process um so that's how the scenarios have been developed we've had about we've got about 300 at the moment um we um are like continuously kind of growing so that we can be applicable to more students at different levels at different universities um and yeah we partner with about eight we last year we partnered with about 80 % of the pharmacy societies across the UK as well to directly be in touch with their students and make sure that what we're offering is actually applicable to them and helpful to them.

3:21And we're starting those partnerships again this year. And we're currently in a phase where we're trying to actually also offer institutional licensing. So we've got pilots scheduled with a few universities for this next academic year. And we're in conversations with a few different universities as well about trying that out for this year. Yeah, great. So would you say feedback from people has been a really big thing in developing OSCE Toolbook? Yeah, massively. So from the very beginning, so we've like we constantly collect feedback at different stages. So when we first started, we had like maybe 20 scenarios and we actually just leave it to, I think it was third years at the Monfort University.

4:04and we just like monitored their usage like their usage habits and sent out got some qualitative feedback as well through feedback forms and that shaped how the first version of the platform was like when we first released it we regularly collect feedback through of course surveys so if somebody cancels their subscription or post-practice we automatically send out surveys we also do focus groups every year as well so we're doing a few focus groups with students that have purchased us and students that haven't purchased us too. So yeah, we constantly get feedback and that constantly shapes like where we're going and what our priorities are.

4:42Yeah, fab. So what was the inspiration behind starting the business? So I'm a, as a, well, I was a medical student and as a medical student, we also have OSCEs and there's actually lots of OSCE platforms for medical students, but there wasn't anything for pharmacy students who are still the only pharmacy focused OSCE platform. And the reason is there's less pharmacy students. Medical students is a lot more of us. It's a lot more profitable because it's a bigger market and it translates a lot more across the seas as well. So a lot of American medical students will also purchase from UK platforms, whereas pharmacy, US pharmacy and UK pharmacy are quite different.

5:22So I think those are my suspicions as to why it hasn't been tackled before. However, as a student who experienced how like anxiety inducing OSCEs were myself and like really relied on this kind of external support to be able to actually practice with people. I felt like it was really unfair that my counterparts in pharmacy didn't have anything similar and they were just trying like having to use whatever their university gave them, which sometimes was like no practice scenarios. And just, you know, some a few kind of workshops where they were like lecture style, but they weren't actually getting to practice, which is the biggest, like that's the biggest game changer from feeling more confident about the exam.

6:01um and it felt unfair that we didn't get to do that um so that's when I started investigating you know how easy would this be to develop and then it went from there yeah great so you really noticed like a gap in the market for even a pain point that you yourself weren't experiencing at that time yeah absolutely but I had a friend who I was quite close friends with that I was supporting for his with his pharmacy studies but that's where I like I knew people that were experiencing it and that I had experienced the same feeling about the same exam. It was just in medicine rather than pharmacy. Okay, great.

6:38So already studying to become a doctor and doing all that is a massive feat in itself. What was it like to build a business alongside studying? Yeah, it was tough. Like I definitely can't sugarcoat it. It was difficult. I definitely, you know, there were lots of times where I was, you know, very stressed out because I had exams coming up. But also it was, you know, OSCE season. We had lots of users, for example, and lots to do. So it was stressful. But I think I definitely like picked up a few things to be able to do it. So intentionally, like constantly reevaluating what my priorities are. Um, so closer to exam season, I would prioritize medicine more, but outside of exam season, I would prioritize the business where I could, um, and kind of scale back how much I was doing, you know, how many hours I was doing on revision versus working on the platform.

7:36So constantly just living in seasons and reprioritizing, um, and doing that very intentionally. So I do like a weekly reset at the end of every single week where I like, you know, will set my goals for the following week. Um, and every time there's a big shift. So, for example, you know, exams are in a month and I will reevaluate what that will look like. So I'm constantly like thinking about, OK, from this month to this month, this is what I'm going to be able to spend more time on versus the things I'm going to take a backseat on. So I think just being very intentional about my time, accepting that I'm going to, you know, if I'm not spending a lot of my time on this on medicine, I'm not going to I might not do as well.

8:16in it I'm less likely to do as well in it as I would if I spent 100 % of the time and that's okay I would rather have the best of both worlds and be you know pretty good at both things than be amazing at that one area and and not have the business so yeah just being intentional about it and accepting that you can't do everything but you just have to be okay with what you choose yeah that is really impressive well done thank you so much so you're here right now because you won the early stage innovation award at the hustle awards this year so congratulations on that again so how did winning the award make you feel and what does that mean for you and the business honestly I was buzzing so I couldn't be there in person to accept the award but two of my team members were and um yeah they were super excited um and I think it was the first time that it was you know my team members were out at an event and I wasn't and I could really see how um like it infected the whole team like how excited they were they were just sending all the photos and the feedback in the group chat but um yeah and then we had a team meeting like the next Monday virtually and they were telling us about it and it was just so it was so exciting uh it means a lot especially you know when it's people outside the industry because it's very I think it's very easy especially if you're the founder you worry that people don't want to upset you so maybe you know people are giving you good feedback just because they're your friends and family or you know you don't want to tell someone to their face oh I don't think what you're developing is a good idea etc so it means so much to have you know the kind of like the validation and the feedback from people that have no reason to, you know, falsely reassure you that what you're doing is a cool thing.

10:05So yeah, it was just super validating, super motivating. It's really, I think, given us like a huge boost to go on and be able to do more things and apply for more awards and speak openly and post more and feel confident in what we're doing. You know, it really, I think as a founder, especially more early stage you always have that little god like if I speak so openly about this and you know we completely we have to shut down one day because we're not profitable or something like that then I'm going to be so embarrassed but having this kind of like this sort of like validation and approval from people that know what they're talking about um just makes you less afraid of that so I think it means a lot yeah yeah good I'm glad to hear all of that I think I hear from a lot of the founders when I do the winner series that they say oh it's such a good time to like actually step back because the life of a founder is so fast-paced and especially I can imagine for you who was studying at the same time it's just thing after thing after thing and people don't get that time to kind of sit back and go wow look at all this great stuff I've done and having that outside validation is that moment to be like okay this is good then yeah a hundred because I think the last time I actually stopped and and like looked at what we achieved was like the end of um 2024 so it's it's yeah like been like a year and a half that I've just been focused on our like core activities and not actually looked back and been like wow look at how much we've grown since then like look at where we're going and yeah and it's it's definitely been as you said like a really good moment to actually be able to do that great so how have you how has the business grown over the last couple of years?

11:52Oh yeah it's so crazy to think because I remember being in third year and that's when we started placements in med school and I was just in my like little accommodation room and it's so weird to think that there was a point where OSCE Toolbox was just a phrase in my head only and no one you know knew of it as anything and now I would argue like at least half of pharmacy students know who we are they've had oski toolbox before um it's a small market there's only about um 18 000 pharmacy students in the uk but it's like i mean i say it's only 18 000 but to think that so many of them know who we are when i you know when i'm going to universities and i'll say like anybody know oski toolbox and at least half the room puts their hands up um it's quite crazy to me um that people will have heard of it um and it's just weird at one point it was just only in my head and no one knew what it was um and it was very slow growing at the beginning of course um especially like pre-ai where it was difficult to get a task done you know um we are fully funded like i've i would i bootstrapped it from the beginning so um we didn't have any external funding so i couldn't afford to hire a full-time team either So it was very, very slow, like at the beginning.

13:06And then now looking at how much we've achieved, and it's been accelerated a lot faster. So yeah, we've had over 5 ,000 students actually register on the platform to be able to regularly use the platform. You don't even have to register to use our free scenarios. And we partnered with so many societies. Lecturers know who we are. And yeah, because I recently presented at a pharmacy education conference, and a lot of the lecturers already had heard of Oski Toolbox and knew who I was from my LinkedIn. beforehand so um it's definitely it's it's definitely surreal it's very surreal and I'm not sure when it's going to stop feeling surreal but it still feels that way it's been two and a half years and yeah yeah it's it's so I'm very grateful yeah that's amazing so kind of continuing on to ask questions about your journey what would you say have been some of the biggest challenges so far?

14:02I'd say the biggest challenge you know the bootstrapped SME is always going to be founder capacity and funding funding is becoming a little bit less of a constraint as we're growing because there's less things that I feel like we need to spend money on you know for example at the beginning there was a lot for brand awareness but now we have pretty good brand awareness so um we've sort of figured out where the best places to spend money are um so that's less of a challenge now but funding has always been an issue um I actually just used my student loans um a lot at the beginning so I've put in a lot of my own money and um I was you know there was always a thought in the back of my mind that you know this could completely bomb and then I will have wasted it but then I thought it's not a waste because I will have learned something and I would have had some fun.

14:55But so funding has been one thing and then founder capacity has definitely been the biggest thing. I'm the type of person that, I think a lot of founders are the type of person that, you know, we like to get involved in a lot of things. We just get very excited at the idea of things. We want to be very hands-on. So, you know, while running OSCE Toolbox, apart from being a medical student, I have also been tutoring, like private tutoring pharmacy students. I have also been a chief strategy officer at a healthcare training company. Um, I've also, um, um, been, um, like taken part in like being president of a couple of different societies, um, at university.

15:33So there's been a lot I've been involved in while doing all of this. I did it during my master's as well. Like I took a year out, did a master's and I was still running OSCE toolbox at that point. Um, so founder capacity has been a big, obviously strain. Um, naturally the more time you have to work on things, the faster the platform grows, et cetera. But again, it's just been something I've had to accept. so I said those two are the biggest things um there is always the emotional side of things as well um you know there's a lot there can be a lot of you know feeling of um imposter syndrome like who am I to develop this especially because this is my first startup I don't actually have any entrepreneurs in the family either um so I think there's a lot of um there's been been a lot of emotional um a few emotional hurdles but the way that I've kind of gone through them is just by like looking back at what we've achieved so far and just focusing on what's the next step in front of me so yeah okay you have been very busy I'm still I'm still a bit shocked at how many things you kind of done all in one go while still studying and then building the business of that thank you so what would you say have been some of the biggest highlights of the journey so far okay so I think the main one has actually been my team so um operationally we've always worked with like a team of sort of revolving team of uh volunteers so um they're basically been my friends who studied medicine with me that I knew would be really good to be involved in something like this and they wanted to because not only did they find it enjoyable but it gave them a chance to use their brain outside of something other than medicine and to develop their skills.

17:14A lot of medical students are very motivated. So I've been very blessed to have like a really supportive group of friends that have basically been the team and working with them. We do weekly meetings. So, you know, if I'm busy and I haven't had the chance to see them, I get to at least see them while working on the project. So developing this alongside my friends, getting to see them regularly and, you know, having their support and growing together, like as a team, that's definitely been the number one highlight for me. I honestly, I genuinely couldn't have done it without them. Absolutely not.

17:44I think that there's been lots of times. So to be transparent, I have got clinical depression and there's definitely been periods where I've had to take a step back and I've been really struggled, like I've struggled to be motivated to do certain tasks and drive the business forward. But luckily because I've had a team, I'm always, you know, I feel like a sense of duty and I've had like a baseline level of activity that I kept up and they've held up the business while I've been through those periods so that's definitely 100 % been the highlight for sure yeah yeah I think a lot of founders often talk about like how important a team is as well as a support system around them but it sounds like almost your team is your support system at the same time and it's so nice to hear that you have those people around you that do want to help out as well yeah yeah I've been very very blessed it's really like some of my team started off as team members and became friends and some of them were friends who become team members and still saved my friends um and we like also sometimes we'll whack on other projects outside of the business together too like other healthcare projects um so it's it's really it's been really cool and really fun for sure and if everything went bust one day like that still would have made it all worth it yeah amazing so what would you say have been some of the biggest lessons that you've learned since founding OSCE Toolbox?

19:03I think the main one is like where there's a will, there's a way. So there's a book I read called The Third Door. Do you know it? It's by Alex Bernayan. No, I've not heard of it before. Look, I think for any, especially first time founders or anyone who, you know, they've not, anyone who's like maybe a first time founder or they're struggling with the idea of going, you know, going on and starting something because they may be a bit nervous I definitely recommend that book um it's um the the part that stuck out to me in the book was it's it was a student who was actually a medical student but in the U.S.

19:38um and he wanted to speak to some of the world's you know amazing people so like Steve Jobs and um uh Bill Gates actually I don't think he did I don't think he managed to speak to Steve Jobs before anyways Bill Gates um other um amazing like um entrepreneurs I think he just picked Lady Gaga as well actually there's a few people yeah so a lot like a lot of people in all sorts of different like industries that you know you would never as an ordinary person you wouldn't never expect to meet all of these people and he just went about things in such a creative way and managed to reach so many people just by having this dream so and it really just taught me like if you want to to get something done you can do it you just like there's there's a way you just have to like figure out that route and you just have to be persistent and be creative so I think that's the biggest thing so you really can do anything that you put your mind to um and that's just once once I kind of unlocked that thought um I think it it it made everything so much easier so that's definitely the biggest lesson that I learned um was you you can do what anything that you want to do it just depends on you know how dedicated are you going to be how much time can you put towards it etc on what you're willing to sacrifice yeah I'm so inspired so on the same vein of lessons is what is one lesson or piece of advice that you could either give to another founder or you wish you could go back and tell yourself at the beginning of your journey I think I would say to have a bias to action um I think often when I've met other you know founders or people that want to start something they're either they're either a bit too careful and a bit too you know they've been planning they've had this idea in their head for like two years um and they've just been thinking about it and sitting on it and thinking about kind of you know what they want to research the issue a little bit more um or on the other hand they haven't actually analyzed enough they haven't done enough learning and they've just already started developing something without speaking to you know prospective customers or investigating the issue.

21:44Me personally, I think I actually fell a little bit more on the too thoughtful side of the scale. So for other people that were going like similar to me, which I think is actually, yeah, a lot of founders or prospective founders, I would say just have a bias to action. There needs to be a deadline for you actually taking action on something. And I think learning alongside taking action is the best way. So constantly, you can work and develop your platform while doing customer learning and use that to shape it but you don't need to do all the customer learning in the world before you you know develop your product um so i think for me and for founders like me would i would say to have more of a vice action some other people for other people you know that already have that vice action i would say definitely build time into your schedule to actually sit look at everything you're doing and think strategically um and and actually set you know set operational steps um um and yeah take time to do that and think from a more visionary perspective rather than just constantly being stuck in the weeds and and and working on things without having you know doing the actual um thinking and scaffolding behind it i think more and more so i'm seeing more founders actually building in public as well so rather than just kind of thinking for ages and then kind of doing everything behind the scenes so many people would think for a bit do a bit of research then launch and then go with now but not launch fully but like we're now going to build in public and kind of show people what we're doing which then also can help with the research part of it and the thinking part of it as well absolutely it's so so useful like building in public is so useful for um yeah and building a network as well like having that community already before you launch um getting feedback marketing like yeah there's definitely so many so many benefits for for building in public and that's also something that we didn't do we sort of did it like very lightly but not enough so I would also that's also something that I would change as well about how I went about things too yeah great so to round off this episode what does the future hold for the business and yourself you did mention that you are about to start a new job so do you have any other big plans in the pipeline Frank?

23:59So for the business, the next goal is to partner more with the actual universities to be able to support the institutions because they're the places that can make the biggest change for students. So we want to support them. That's like short term is what we want. Then I also want us to expand and support students that are other neglected areas in allied health. So optometry students, physiotherapy students that also actually have OSCEs and again, don't have as many resources as medics. And then we also actually want to expand globally. So we actually want to, we have students that have contacted us in Africa and in Asian countries and the Middle East as well that we would love to support.

24:41So ideally we want to go global. We want to, you know, support students in different other healthcare professions and just make a difference to hopefully patients in not in the healthcare system. For me personally, I just want to keep developing my skills, become better at business while staying in touch with, you know, the end users and making sure that I'm always, you know, staying grounded. I think that's the main thing. I don't have, I don't have any plans to kind of sell or anything like that at the moment. I just want to, I want to stay focused and just keep growing this as much as possible.

25:18Keep growing myself as well. um and yeah getting better that's that's really it yeah well that is amazing so to as my final final one is there anything else that you wanted to add or plug at the end of the episode no I guess just a thank you to the Startups Magazine and Hustle Awards for what you guys are doing um obviously very motivational and inspiring for founders like myself um and making a huge difference like overall to innovation in the UK. So yeah, I appreciate it. And thank you guys for giving us the award. Yeah, well, thank you for applying. And congratulations once again on winning early stage innovation.

26:01It is a huge feat. So Leah, it has been amazing speaking with you and learning more about OSCE Toolbox in this episode. And hopefully we can stay in touch and learn as you continue growing and expanding. That would be amazing. thank you so much perfect thank you if you like this episode be sure to subscribe to the podcast and check out startup magazine socials to stay up to date on the latest startups news