Podcasts about Rock Health

Most medical care is backed by varying types of evidence, yet we apply higher standards to digital health tools before they're trusted, adopted, or reimbursed.In this special episode, guest host Lucia Savage is joined by Dr. Vindell Washington of Verily and Dr. Aaron Carroll of AcademyHealth for a candid conversation about the uneven standards we apply to digital versus traditional care. Together, they explore how we define evidence, whose voices shape that definition, and what it takes to build trust in an AI-powered healthcare future.We cover:

Women make 80% of healthcare decisions and outspend men two to one on care—yet when it comes to designing, funding, and scaling health tech, they're still treated like a niche.In this episode, we break down the broken flywheel holding women's health innovation back including fewer growth-stage investments, limited exits, and a system not built to serve women as the primary users of care. I'm joined by Carolyn Witte, co-founder of Tia, and Katie Drasser, CEO of Rock Health, to talk about what needs to change—and how we get there.We cover:

In this month's Digital Health Download, Steve, Halle, and Michael take a deliberately optimistic look at key headlines in healthcare technology. From the impressive impact of AI scribing tools on physician satisfaction to encouraging survival rates among digital health unicorns from the ZIRP-era, the hosts highlights bright spots in an often challenging industry.We cover:

In this episode, Adriana Krasniansky, Head of Research at Rock Health, sits down with Joy Basinger and Irina Ahmad to discuss 3 healthcare predictions for 2025: Artificial Intelligence: In 2025, AI adoption will accelerate on the provider side as health systems transition from pilots to enterprise level partnerships. Clinical documentation AI will become commoditized, while opportunities for AI solutions to differentiate will be in diagnostics, treatment, and monitoring of disease. Women's Health: Per Rock Health year-end review, reproductive and maternal health jumped 7 places among top funded clinical indications. In 2025, funding and traction in women's health will extend beyond historically well-funded indications such as maternity, menopause, and fertility, to include more expansive use-cases across the lifecycle. Big Tech & Wearables: In 2025, big tech firms will make another push into healthcare, this time with wearables. Companies such as WHOOP, Oura, and Apple are already actively designing and launching wearable health products, aiming to expand their role in clinical care, chronic disease management, and monitoring.Read more of Adriana's work at Rock Health, including "2024 Year-End Review" and “Healthcare Innovation at the turn of 2025”.Visit our podcast page for more episodes on trends and innovation in healthcare and follow our socials so you never miss an update. Linkedin

From the return of "historic norms" in funding to the rise of AI and strategic pharma partnerships, 2024 was quite the year for digital health. Rock Health Advisory CEO Megan Zweig joins us on this episode to unpack a year defined by resilience, consolidation, and the 'revenge of the Goliaths.' We look at the funding data, reveal how the industry's unicorns survived their valuation hangovers, and share why 2024 might be remembered as healthcare's boiling point.We cover:

Raj Gokal is the co-founder of Solana and president of Solana Labs. He also serves on the board of the Solana Foundation. He was previously focused on startups in behavioral health. He was Director of Product at Omada Health; EIR at Rock Health; Co-Founder of Sano, building consumer glucose sensors; and an investor at General Catalyst Partners. He started his career in hedge funds at companies like Meridian Capital Partners. Raj studied Finance at the Wharton School of UPenn.

How LG's Primefocus Health Is Addressing Digital Home Care Darren Sabo, CEO of Primefocus Health, gives an inside look at the company's launch in partnership with LG. He covers a lot of ground about health at home and educating consumers on this quickly evolving space.  All that, plus the Flava of the Week about what Rock Health is saying about wearables. What can we learn from their data about wearable usage, and how should we remember mature technologies as we design and build consumer-centered services? " Find all of our network podcasts on your favorite podcast platforms and be sure to subscribe and like us. Learn more at www.healthcarenowradio.com/listen/

How the VA Health & Benefits App Reached 2 Million Downloads Ryan Thurlwell, the VA Health and Benefits Mobile App Design Lead, recognizes a milestone: the app has been downloaded more than 2 million times, ranking it among the most popular digital health apps. Ryan shares the app's most popular features, insights about connecting digital aspects of a Veteran's healthcare experience, and what it all tells us about digital engagement.  All that, plus the Flava of the Week about Rock Health's new research about consumers and weight care. What opportunities does the research show for virtual coaching, and what other insights does it highlight about what consumers want? Find all of our network podcasts on your favorite podcast platforms and be sure to subscribe and like us. Learn more at www.healthcarenowradio.com/listen/

The PulsePod team are in Brisbane Australia for the annual HIC conference, where there are a number of announcements from large software companies, plus the future of interoperability seems to be FHIR all the way baby!What does Rock Health's latest report tell us about US investor sentiment in digital health startups?Investing in women founders is so rare, should we refer to that as the real unicorn in start-up land?US based personal genomics company 23andMe – from highs to lows, what's next for personal genomics?It's all about the patient!  Simple things like the convenience of online patient appointment booking are still a rarity in the land of medical specialists – one guy is wanting to change that!A visit into the Pulse+IT archives: Kate McDonald wrote about Chris Longhurst and Mike South's HIC2018 keynote on why clinician burnout related to the EMR is not as prevalent a problem in Australia vs US.Louise & George talk with Liz Salmi, Communications & Patient Initiatives Director for OpenNotes at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center in the US about her research and patient advocacy work, and what does happen when patients get bad health news from reading it in online firstPaper: When Bad News Comes Through the PortalKeynote: Getting Ready for Open Everything, MedInfo 2023Follow @TheLizArmy on LinkedIn  |  X Visit Pulse+IT.news to learn more, engage in this rapidly growing sector, and subscribe to breaking digital news, weekly newsletters and a rich treasure trove of archival material.  People in the know, get their news from Pulse+IT – Your leading voice in digital health news.Follow us on LinkedIn  Louise  |  George  |  Pulse+ITFollow us on X   Louise  |  George  |  Pulse+ITSend us your questions pulsepod@pulseit.newsProduction by Octopod Productions | Ivan Juric

Join James and Huw as they take a deep-dive into the week's healthtech news and views.This week: [00:50] - More deal volume, lower check sizes for digital health in Q1, with AI investment leading the pack: Rock Health[22:30] - Virtual reality eases pain in cancer trial — even the next day[37:00] - I lead one of the startups accusing Apple of patent infringement. Here's why Congress should side with us[47:30] - How UK-based BoobyBiome Is Advancing Infant Feeding Harnessing the Power of the Breast Milk Microbiome

Jacob and Nikhil sit down with Malay Gandhi, Head of Strategy & Corporate Development at Benchling. Malay previously served as CEO of Rock Health and SVP of Business Operations at Evidation Health, and his seminal pieces helped shape early digital health thinking. They discuss some of Malay's early pieces, the future of life sciences & real-world evidence, building & scaling software at Benchling, and more. (0:00) intro(0:58) how Malay feels about his old essays(8:00) the Benchling story(16:29) serving customers in different industries(22:12) how will AI change Benchling(29:49) the state of tech in biopharma(38:41) the real-world experiment(42:04) have trial designs changed?(46:24) over-hyped/under-hyped Out-Of-Pocket: https://www.outofpocket.health/

Halle Tecco is an entrepreneur, angel investor, and podcast host passionate about fixing our healthcare system. She is the founder of Natalist, a women's health company focused on evidence-backed fertility and pregnancy essentials, which was acquired by Everly Health in October 2021. She also founded and ran Rock Health, an early-stage digital health venture fund. And most recently, she's the co-founder and Chair of Cofertility, a human-first fertility ecosystem rewriting the egg freezing and egg donation experience.In this week's episode, we talk to Halle about overcoming perfectionism, imposter syndrome, and the realities of entrepreneurship. On the hunt for the next big investment, Halle searched high and low to find a company to back that was approaching fertility in a way that she had envisioned. When she couldn't find the perfect company to invest in she decided to create it herself. Natalist was the first company to create a more evidence-based approach to reproductive care. We chat about her journey in corporate, to then investor, and finally start-up founder and the biggest surprises and lessons she's learned along the way. In this episode, we'll talk to Halle about:* How Halle's upbringing and family business impacted the way Halle thinks about entrepreneurship. [​​07:27]* The biggest takeaway Halle had from business school. [13:08]* Establishing the VC firm, Rock Health, during business school. [19:55]* How Halle secured partnerships for Rock Health. [24:07]* A hurtful experience when a reporter wrote negative and unfavorable articles about Halle. [26:39]* Experiencing impostor syndrome. [28:29]* Overcoming insecurities and being a people pleaser. [30:15]* Recognizing when people-pleasing hinders success and the strategies to address it. [34:32]* The idea behind Halle's company, Natalist. [40:04]* Identifying the suitable operator and selling the company. [42:24]* Why Halle prefers engaging in work rather than managing people. [45:58]* Serving as a CEO during the first 18 months and the importance of people management. [48:04]* Promoting work-life balance and creating a healthy work culture. [49:32]* Selling Natalist in 2021 at its peak. [52:03]This episode is brought to you by beeya: * Learn more about beeya's seed cycling bundle at https://beeyawellness.com/free to find out how to tackle hormonal imbalances. * Get $10 off your order by using promo code BEHINDHEREMPIREFollow Yasmin:* Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/yasminknouri/* Website: https://www.b Follow Halle:* Website: https://www.halletecco.com/* Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/halletecco/ Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

About Steve Kraus:Steve Kraus is a partner at Bessemer in the Cambridge office and a world-renowned healthcare investor. He is the author of Bessemer's 10 Laws of Healthcare,  Benchmarks for Growing Health tech Businesses, and is a co-host of A Healthy Dose podcast. Steve currently sits on the boards of Bright Health Group, Headspace Health, Groups, Qventus, AspenRx, HouseRx, Oshi Health, Folx Health, Mural Health, Alcresta and US Health Partners.Prior to joining Bessemer, Steve worked for a growth-stage, private equity firm and as a management consultant at Bain & Company. He has also worked on several different political campaigns throughout his career.He serves as an Observer at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, an advisor to Boston Children's Hospital and the Harvard Business School's Center for Entrepreneurship, and on the investment committees of BCBS Massachusetts and Rock Health.Steve graduated from summa cum laude from Yale University and earned his MBA from Harvard, where he was a Baker Scholar.Things You'll Learn:With a dedicated healthcare practice for over 40 years, Bessemer brings a unique advantage by integrating partners with diverse industry expertise and networks. This approach allows them to make strategic investments in various industries, including healthcare, software as a service, fintech, consumer, and crypto.The Intersection of Healthcare and AI: One of the fascinating topics discussed is how Bessemer leverages the convergence of healthcare and AI.By combining Bessemer's healthcare team's knowledge with a deep AI team, they have built one of the most extensive portfolios in healthcare AI today. This focus on innovation and emerging technologies positions them to tap into the potential of AI to drive down costs, improve outcomes, and revolutionize the healthcare industry.Navigating the Current Landscape: With recent economic challenges, including market downturns and valuation adjustments, the VC industry has faced some headwinds. However, Steve Krause highlights that the current valuation reset has created opportunities for investors.Steve emphasizes that the healthcare sector, in particular, holds immense potential, and as the public markets open up, the next cohort of healthcare tech companies will emerge, propelling the industry forward.Resources:Connect with and follow Steve Kraus on LinkedIn.Follow Bessemer on LinkedIn and visit their website.

About Steve Kraus:Steve Kraus is a partner at Bessemer in the Cambridge office and a world-renowned healthcare investor. He is the author of Bessemer's 10 Laws of Healthcare,  Benchmarks for Growing Health tech Businesses, and is a co-host of A Healthy Dose podcast. Steve currently sits on the boards of Bright Health Group, Headspace Health, Groups, Qventus, AspenRx, HouseRx, Oshi Health, Folx Health, Mural Health, Alcresta and US Health Partners.Prior to joining Bessemer, Steve worked for a growth-stage, private equity firm and as a management consultant at Bain & Company. He has also worked on several different political campaigns throughout his career.He serves as an Observer at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, an advisor to Boston Children's Hospital and the Harvard Business School's Center for Entrepreneurship, and on the investment committees of BCBS Massachusetts and Rock Health.Steve graduated from summa cum laude from Yale University and earned his MBA from Harvard, where he was a Baker Scholar.Things You'll Learn:With a dedicated healthcare practice for over 40 years, Bessemer brings a unique advantage by integrating partners with diverse industry expertise and networks. This approach allows them to make strategic investments in various industries, including healthcare, software as a service, fintech, consumer, and crypto.The Intersection of Healthcare and AI: One of the fascinating topics discussed is how Bessemer leverages the convergence of healthcare and AI.By combining Bessemer's healthcare team's knowledge with a deep AI team, they have built one of the most extensive portfolios in healthcare AI today. This focus on innovation and emerging technologies positions them to tap into the potential of AI to drive down costs, improve outcomes, and revolutionize the healthcare industry.Navigating the Current Landscape: With recent economic challenges, including market downturns and valuation adjustments, the VC industry has faced some headwinds. However, Steve Krause highlights that the current valuation reset has created opportunities for investors.Steve emphasizes that the healthcare sector, in particular, holds immense potential, and as the public markets open up, the next cohort of healthcare tech companies will emerge, propelling the industry forward.Resources:Connect with and follow Steve Kraus on LinkedIn.Follow Bessemer on LinkedIn and visit their website.

Like our own expert Siri, Leslie Schrock should be available on-demand for anyone who's struggling with fertility. And she can be! With two books and now on an episode of Baby or Bust, everyone can access her informed and sensitive approach to miscarriage, medically necessary abortion, and other fertility challenges. Leslie Schrock is an author, entrepreneur, and angel investor who has been involved in health and fertility for pretty much her entire working life. Her first book, Bumpin': The Modern Guide to Pregnancy mixes clinical research with practical advice for working families. Her second book, Fertility Rules, does the same for fertility.  After working in advertising for many years, Leslie helped found and grow Rock Health, a digital health startup incubator and venture fund and was named one of the Most Creative People in Business by Fast Company. In this episode you'll hear: [00:00:] Intro [00:37:] Baby or Bust Intro and Thank you to sponsors [01:10:] Intro for Episode: Learn more about author, Leslie Schrock [02:23:] Episode starts — How Dr. Shahine found Leslie's books and what was different about ‘Bumpin' and ‘Fertility Rules' [04:54]: Leslie's fertility story — expectations crashed, recurrent pregnancy loss, terminating a highly desired pregnancy, a tough pregnancy and delivery, and more [09:18:] What's different about Leslie's writing and her motivation – giving facts without fear, allowing all the feelings and frustrations without shame and guilt Busting fertility myths with Leslie Schrock [16:34:] Myth #1 “Fertility is a Woman's Problem” The role of men in reproduction — “Men need a seat at the fertility table!” [24:00:] Myth #2 “Supplements Cure Infertility” — What you need and don't need while trying to conceive and how to find what's safe [27:21:] Myth #3 “We Always Know the Cause of Miscarriage” — The patients with easy conception but miscarriage experience a different kind of infertility. Is it really just “bad luck”? [32:46:] The Hope Trial at Stanford — enroll to learn more about genetics and recurrent miscarriage  [34:50: Myth] #4 “Abortion is NOT healthcare” — Sometimes abortion is not a choice. Terminating a highly desired pregnancy for a lethal anomaly was a heartbreaking experience for Leslie [39:25]: Learn about the non-profit Doctors for Fertility  [39:43]: Myth #5 “Once you have a baby, no more infertility” — Secondary infertility impacted both Dr. Shahine and Leslie [42:45:] Wrapping up and thank you Resources mentioned:  leslieschrock.com  Bumpin' by Leslie Schrock Fertility Rules by Leslie Schrock doctorsforfertility.com Stay Up to Date in Fertility News and Events:  Weekly Newsletter Follow @drlorashahine Instagram | YouTube | Tiktok | Her Books 

Leslie is the author of two books, Fertility Rules and Bumpin': The Modern Guide to Pregnancy, and was part of the founding team of Rock Health. Just like any other industry, we can't further women's health without smart investment in the right solutions. But unlike other industries, women's health has historically been under-researched, which means investors are only now understanding how big the opportunity we have in front of us is. From the point solutions to the winners who have seemingly taking it all, Leslie helps break down the complexity of funding and furthering solutions in women's health in 2023.

Join us on this week's episode of Agile Giants as we dive into the world of digital health startups and the crucial role of partnerships in driving innovation. Our guest, Sari Kaganoff, General Manager of Consulting at Rock Health shares her expertise on how enterprises and startups should approach partnerships as part of their overall innovation strategy. Beyond the obvious benefits of resource access, she reveals the hidden advantages that startups can gain through collaboration with enterprises. Drawing from Rock Health's extensive network, Sari provides real-world examples of companies they work with and the diverse ways they engage with them. These insights shed light on the dynamic nature of corporate-startup partnerships in the digital health industry. Tune in for a thought-provoking conversation on the future of digital health startups and the role of corporate-startup partnerships in driving innovation. Show links:LINKEDIN- https://www.linkedin.com/company/rock-health/, https://www.linkedin.com/in/sarik/ WEBSITE- https://rockhealth.com/ TWITTER- https://twitter.com/KaganoffSari, https://twitter.com/Rock_Health

The Local Lens is a public health podcast going inside one community's experience with the drug epidemic. Everyone in the town of Stanton, KY sees this drug issue differently from each other, either because of their personal lives or professional roles. This show aims to showcase those different perspectives by having honest, in-depth interviews."Wellness" is a term that has gained more prominence in the healthcare world over the years. Today, as we find ourselves in the middle of both mental health and overdose crises, it is as apparent as ever the need to provide enough resources for both mental and physical health. In Stanton, KY, we have a new addition to the list of healthcare providers: Raven Rock Health and Wellness.Heather Deel from Raven Rock joins the show to give us the rundown of what they offer and why it's needed. Their services cover nearly all of a patient's health needs, and the case managers on board handle adjacent needs. We also discuss a bit of what it's like to launch a new healthcare center today. Any way you look at it, there is a lot to learn from Raven Rock.These are our people, using our voices, telling our stories, because no one sees it like we do.Contact Raven Rock by phone: (606) 775-0515 or on their website: https://www.ravenrockhw.com/Also, while you're here, help us out by taking this quick survey!24-Hour Crisis Line: 1-833-8KY-HELP (1-833-859-4357)Visit findhelpnowky.org to find treatment options for you in Kentucky.Need help now? Call the Mountain Comp Care 24-Hour Helpline: 1-800-422-1060Learn more about the Kentucky State Police's Angel Initiative here.Keep up with The Local Lens on Facebook, Instagram (@thelocallens_podcast) or on their website.The Local Lens is sponsored by Kentucky Opioid Community Healing (from the Kentucky Rural Health Information Organization) and Powell County CARES (from the Powell County Health Department).Find Powell County CARES on social media:https://www.facebook.com/powellcountycares

Irfan Alam is the CEO of Frontrow Health, a startup with a mission to finally put Americans in the front row of their own healthcare. Will and Victoria talk to Irfan about his background in business strategy and development for healthcare companies, how he went about searching for and building the perfect team, and how he started the culture of Frontrow Health on a level where there is balance and people want to join because it has a good culture. Frontrow Health (https://thefrontrowhealth.com/) Follow Frontrow Health LinkedIn (https://www.linkedin.com/company/frontrowhealth/). Follow Irfan Alam on LinkedIn (https://www.linkedin.com/in/irfanalam12/). Follow thoughtbot on Twitter (https://twitter.com/thoughtbot) or LinkedIn (https://www.linkedin.com/company/150727/). Become a Sponsor (https://thoughtbot.com/sponsorship) of Giant Robots! Transcript: WILL: This is the Giant Robots Smashing Into Other Giant Robots Podcast, where we explore the design, development, and business of great products. I'm your host, Will Larry. VICTORIA: And I'm your other host, Victoria Guido. And with us today is Irfan Alam, Founder, and CEO at Frontrow Health, a startup with a mission to finally put Americans in the front row of their own healthcare. WILL: Hi, Irfan. Thank you for joining us. IRFAN: Thanks for having me; super excited to chat more about the whole process of building and launching Frontrow Health. VICTORIA: Yes, we're super excited. Of course, I know you as a client of thoughtbot, and I'm excited to hear your story. And you have this background in business strategy and development for healthcare companies. But what led you to decide to start your own platform? IRFAN: I think it was a combination of two things; one was a lived experience being inspired by the power of entrepreneurship with my family and then working at Everlywell. And then two, it was discovering and being reminded of a critical problem that I saw in the industry that I then became excited about solving. So growing up, I was raised by my two parents and my grandparents. My grandfather was an entrepreneur himself and also an immigrant and kind of brought our whole legacy of my family into the U.S. from Southeast Asia. He has always motivated me to take risks and to build something great for the world, and that's what he's always wanted for me. And so I joined Everlywell, a small digital health startup, back in 2019 because I was excited to get my feet wet in the world of startups. It was just within a number of months after that I had joined where COVID-19 hit, and Everlywell, a home lab testing company based out of Austin, got swept up into the storm of COVID and, in a lot of ways, threw ourselves into the center of the storm when we ended up launching the first home COVID-19 test. And it was that summer of 2020 when I probably had the most profound personal and professional growing experience of my life, just trying to handle this chaos and confusing world that we were all living in. But then also simultaneously watching how a small team could make an outsized impact in the world during a time of need. And that really led me to want to pursue my own startup ambitions. So I started thinking about business school. The founder and CEO, Julia Cheek, went to Harvard Business School in 2009 and publicly talks about it being sort of this magical moment in time where people were flooding in from the downturn economy, excited about solving new problems. And her class of graduates is sort of like a famous class of entrepreneurs. And so I brought it up with her, and she was super supportive. And I went through the process and got super lucky. And I decided to take the summer off in 2021 before coming to HBS and moving back to Boston. And it was during that summer where I started thinking about the problems that companies like Everlywell and direct-to-consumer health brands faced that I realized was not just at the fault of their own but because the industry didn't have the right digital tools necessary to succeed. That's sort of the origin of how Frontrow Health came to be. WILL: Sweet. So perfect segue; tell us more about the mission of Frontrow Health. IRFAN: We're on a mission to put people on the front row of their own healthcare. And we really just want to reimagine how people shop for their healthcare online. What I learned at Everlywell was that this boom of consumer health which means people who are taking charge of their own health and are able to do that directly through these digital health companies was a form of healthcare that could create a tremendous amount of value in people's lives. But that was only really accessible to a small niche audience. And it didn't feel like it was equitably accessible to the average American. And so some of those barriers that I realized as a part of my work at Everlywell for why the average American wasn't engaging with consumer health, this otherwise really powerful form of taking charge of your own health and wellness, was because of these three blockers that we're trying to address at Frontrow Health. The first being that people just don't know about what kinds of solutions are out there that can address their health issues beyond just taking a prescription medication given to them by the doctor that they visit in their office. The second is if they do know, they don't know what to trust. They don't know whether this spam of healthcare companies that they're getting advertisements on from Instagram are the right companies, whether these products are safe and effective for them uniquely because of their unique health issues their unique health history. And then finally, even if they are aware and they do trust the health product, at the end of the day, a lot of Americans just can't afford to spend money out of pocket to pay for these consumer health and wellness products like consumables, devices, virtual services, et cetera. And so Frontrow Health is all about trying to break down those barriers in order to unleash consumer health to the average American. VICTORIA: And were you always drawn to that healthcare industry from the beginning? IRFAN: Yeah. So I grew up very privileged with two parents who are physicians. My mom is a psychiatrist, which is quite rare for women of color, specifically of South Asian descent, to be a psychiatrist. And then my dad was a gastroenterologist. They were always the gut-brain connection between the two. And so, growing up, I somewhat classically assumed that I was going to be a doctor. Got to college, thought that that was going to be my path. I realized quickly that there is a whole world outside of being a physician yourself that I could still be a part of in healthcare without being a doctor. My parents actually, interestingly enough, began to encourage me to think beyond just being a doctor, with them both feeling like the amount of scale of impact that they could have would never be the same as someone who could do that through business or policy or these other facets that are important to healthcare. And so I got to undergrad, started studying policy economics. I started doing internships at different healthcare consulting firms. And I ended up first working at a life science business strategy consulting firm out of college. And it was great, but it ended up not being what I was most excited about because it was really focused on the biopharmaceutical and medical device industry. And what I realized when I got there was I just had this growing passion for digital health and technology, as I saw that it was kind of the future of how people were going to be able to take more preventative charge and improve their health over the long term. And so I was working on this digital health white paper with a partner at the consulting firm I was at, and I was doing research and stumbled upon Everlywell. And then, they had a job opening for this business strategy role. So that's why I ended up taking the leap into the startup world, into the digital health world, and just loved it and kept wanting to continue to grow my experience in that space. WILL: That's amazing. Your parents encouraged you to step outside of just the doctor-physician role and to think higher. So, as a founder, you know, it was amazing that your parents, as physicians, encouraged you to think higher and think into different roles. And as a founder, what were some of the decisions you had to make? What were some of the easier ones? What were some that were surprisingly difficult? IRFAN: I think the biggest misnomer of the founding experience is that founding a company is extremely linear. Sometimes you go one direction forward, and then you take a direction diagonally back, and then you go horizontally straight, and that was my story. When I do my pitch about Frontrow, I try to make it feel a little bit more linear, so it makes sense to people. But the truth is the quote, unquote, "hardest decisions" were about every time there was a direction changing point, and it required a decision about is this the right idea? Do I want to spend more time on another idea? Have I validated this enough? Should I validate it differently? Should I pursue this one further? What does that pursuit look like? Who should I pursue it with? Is it time to raise money? Do I drop out of school? Like, those direction-changing points that then create this much more complex map of the founder experience versus a linear line up into the right is, I think, the more challenging parts of being a founder. VICTORIA: That makes a lot of sense that you have to really go through this iterative process to figure out where are you spending your time, is it in the right place? A lot of hard decisions to make. And while you were founding Frontrow Health, you were also a part-time investor at Rock Health and reviewing other healthcare startup proposals. So did you see any trends or patterns that influenced how you progressed as a founder? IRFAN: Totally, yeah. That was actually instrumental to Frontrow Health. So the story is when I took the summer off before business school, I started thinking about different problems in the world, healthcare, and non-healthcare. Or actually, to be clear, I started thinking about lots of different solutions and ideas and then quickly began to realize that that was not the right approach to founding. I think the first step is to think about problems, problems you've seen, problems you've experienced, that you know others are experiencing, and then work to a solution from there by starting with what the user is experiencing. And so as I was going through that hacky journey over the summer, just randomly, a number of small healthcare companies started reaching out to me asking me for my opinion and advice about how or whether they should go direct-to-consumer, whether they should sell healthcare products direct to the consumer, which is what I did a lot of work on at Everlywell as one of the pioneering consumer health brands in the space. And I started to notice this trend of me telling these companies, "No, don't do it. It's really expensive. It's really ineffective and unprofitable to acquire customers through traditional paid media avenues like Instagram, TikTok, Snapchat, Facebook, et cetera." And, unsurprisingly, you could imagine Everlywell was trying to sell a home diabetes test for people who are type 2 diabetics but were only able to target people based on their interest in yoga and running, which is not really a substitute for a severe chronic condition. And as a result, thousands of people would see our ads every day that had no clinical relevance to our solution. And that was one of the deep problems of why consumer health companies weren't able to reach out to the audiences that actually really needed their solutions. And so when I got to Rock Health at the first semester in business school, doing this sort of part-time investor gig, on the first day, the partners basically told me, "Oh, we don't invest in consumer health." And I was like, "Oh, whoa, okay, that's my jam. That's a bummer. That's like [laughs] the only thing that I know about." And as I started to see the data and the pipeline of companies that were looking for investments and understanding what their unit economics looked like, what their go-to-market approaches looked like, that's when I started to put the dots together that this was not just an Everlywell problem; this was an industry problem. Mark Zuckerberg didn't build Facebook so that direct-to-consumer healthcare companies can cost-effectively target clinically relevant patients online. That just happens to be what it's being used for today. And so that's when I started to realize that there had to be a quote-unquote, "better way." WILL: You bring up social media at Frontrow Health. Have you had to combat the medical advice of social media? IRFAN: Yeah. You mean like this concept of quote, unquote, "Instagram medicine?" WILL: Yes. Yes. IRFAN: It's a great question. So as the story continues, I began to think about what is the right solution to this problem? And instead of Everlywell, I started thinking about the right solution to this problem. What I realized was instead of Everlywell wasting away millions of dollars to big tech companies that wasn't going to improving the health of anybody, what if we gave that money back to the consumer in reward for sharing their health information which would allow us to target them with the right clinically relevant products? That was the first version of Frontrow Health. I called it Health Mart back then. And so I basically started to get people to fill out a Google Form with their health data. And then I worked with my parents to send weekly product recommendations over email based on their unique health needs; you know, I want to sleep better; I'm a diabetic, whatever it is. And then, I wanted to see if I was just going to Venmo them cashback upon purchase if they were going to be any more likely to buy these products for these health brands. And at first, people were incrementally more likely to buy. It wasn't mind-blowing. And so, as I started to talk to the participants of the study, I started saying, "You know, you said that you have high cholesterol. These supplements have active ingredients that have been shown to reduce LDL levels. It's pretty cheap. I'm giving you 25-30% cashback. Why haven't you bought it?" And what they started saying was, "Well, I don't know what these active ingredients are. And before I put that in my body, I want to check with my doctor first." And so that was the final aha moment that led us to Frontrow Health, which is, what if we could bring the doctor into the fold? And instead of consumers just experiencing this Instagram medicine where they're just being blasted with Instagram ads every day about different health products, and they don't know what to trust, that second barrier that I talked about earlier, what if the doctor could instead of just being a guide for what prescription medications you should be taking could also be a guide on what health and wellness products you can be using? And so I added my dad to the email thread, and I said, "Okay, you can talk to an independent medical provider and ask them questions about the products that you're being recommended." And that's when people started buying because then they were able to find the trust in the products that were being curated based on their unique information. WILL: Wow, that's really neat. So to help the audience understand your iteration today, so the first iteration was just giving products and then Venmoing them back cashback. And then the second was bringing in a provider. So what does the product look like today? IRFAN: We went through, like you mentioned, a lot of different iterations of this. There were even prior iterations to this that are more representative of that founder map versus the linear line that you've sort of just heard now. But in terms of where the story went from there, I began to think about how to validate this idea further. I came into winter break; the pilot went well. People were buying a lot of products. And so, I decided to sunset my part-time investor gig at Rock Health and decided to reallocate all my time to working on Health Mart at the time. What I started to think about was, well, what if the doctor was able to earn compensation for writing private product reviews regardless of their opinions? So that was the next iteration was like, how do you incentivize a doctor to take time out of their day to do this new behavior that doesn't exist? Doctors are not writing personalized private product reviews for their patients on supplements, home medical devices, apps, et cetera. And how could we get them to? And so, I started thinking about what are the different motivations of providers? Their time is extremely valuable. How do you incentivize them correctly without incentivizing them to give good or bad feedback but just honest feedback? Then I started basically having my dad recommend Health Mart to his patients every day to see would patients sign up. Like, if doctors were intrinsically motivated to get their patients on the platform so that they can help them get away from Instagram medicine and at the same time earn compensation for themselves as an additional revenue stream, could independent medical providers see that as valuable and a good use of their time? And the first piece of that about whether patients would sign up worked unsurprisingly very well. If your doctor is telling you to sign up for something, or it's free to sign up, and you only pay when you want to buy a product, and they're going to, for the user, be able to ask for feedback from the provider, they were pretty excited. But then the question of would doctors sign up, I started...basically, I had my mom. The next iteration was I had my mom make a couple of posts in these doctor Facebook groups. I put together a little website, a very ugly version of what we have today for a provider marketing page. And I had my mom drop the link in a couple of different doctor Facebook groups. And we actually started getting signups from the doctors. And then, as we started talking to them, what we realized was two things; it was like a win-win. The doctor was happy because they were getting compensated, and they were happy because their patients' health was improving. So when Obama was in administration, he passed a really fundamentally important piece of legislation called The Sunshine Act. And that basically ended this quote, unquote, "golden era" of pharma companies giving kickbacks to doctors. WILL: Oh wow. IRFAN: And so since then, doctors have been very eager to find additional revenue streams that they can leverage their decades of medical expertise to earn. They got medical bills to pay off loans to pay off. They spent 20 years training for this job. And so they were excited about an additional revenue stream that leveraged their medical expertise and also helped their patient. Because they also started saying things like, "Well, my patients are always asking me like, 'What about these supplements I saw for these ads online?'" And the doctor says, "I don't know what these supplements are. WILL: [laughs] IRFAN: I don't have the data in front of me. I don't know what the ingredients are. I don't know whether to trust the company or not." And we are building a platform where it's all streamlined for the provider. The provider is able to review the clinical information. They're able to review their patient information. They're able to really quickly write reviews. We give them templates. We give them suggestions. They're able to reapply recent reviews. And so that was sort of the next iteration. And that's actually when thoughtbot came in and when I started thinking about raising a small round, getting a dev shop to help me build the MVP. And that's kind of how the semester ended up closing out. VICTORIA: I love that your mom and dad were so supportive, it sounds like, of you going full-time on this startup. Was that scary for them for you to do that? IRFAN: It's so funny, yeah. So what happened next was I decided I wanted to start raising a small round because I had the conviction that there was a problem to be solved for consumers, for doctors, and for health brands. And we could build this one unique multi-sided marketplace to solve them. I ended up going back to Austin for spring break partially to visit my family and partially because I wanted to pitch to Julia, the founder of Everlywell, who I thought of all people on planet Earth would understand what I'm trying to do. She would get it because I am building a SaaS solution for health brands like Everlywell and her consumers. And she got it. She was jazzed. And so, she decided to angel invest. And that basically spurred a ton of interest from venture capital firms. I wasn't originally thinking about raising an institutional round but was very lucky with the timing. Just before the market crashed, it was a very hot market. And so we ended up closing a real seed round with the question on hand about whether I should pursue this full-time because the capital that I raised necessitated building a real team. Or should I just take a smaller amount of money and go back to school? And it's unsurprisingly, every different person in my life had some opinion about this, from my wife to my investors, to my parents, to my friends. What I wanted was somewhere nestled in between all of those things. And when I caught my dad up on the phone a couple of weeks after spring break and told him of all the crazy stuff that had been happening...and it was just happening and unfolding so quickly. I was like, "Okay, dad. I'm laying out all my cards here. You have full liberty to be mad at me for wanting to drop out of Harvard." And his first reaction was, "Well, you know, I don't really see the downside. Like, you could either start a company that you're really passionate about and it could go well, or you could be the worst entrepreneur of all time and then just come back to school during this leave of absence," or deferral thing that I'm on right now. And that was the first time where I was like, "Oh, you know what? I think you're right." And the truth was I decided to just continue to let the summer go by to think about the decision a little bit more before I formally submitted my deferral to HBS. As the markets turned, we realized that we needed to hire internally to save on cash burn a little bit. And so once I had built this really awesome team that I'm so lucky to be surrounded by, that's when I was, you know, without a doubt in my mind, I was like, I got to keep pushing for this because now we have this awesome team that just wants to keep driving this mission forward. And we were getting traction. We were talking to hundreds of doctors over the summer. We were talking to health brands. And it really felt like we were onto something. MID-ROLL AD: thoughtbot is thrilled to announce our own incubator launching this year. If you are a non-technical founding team with a business idea that involves a web or mobile app, we encourage you to apply for our eight-week program. We'll help you move forward with confidence in your team, your product vision, and a roadmap for getting you there. Learn more and apply at tbot.io/incubator. That's T-B-O-T.I-OVICTORIA: I-N-C-U-B-A-T-O-R. WILL: I hear you have an amazing product team. How did you go about searching and building the right team? IRFAN: We got lucky in a second way because of timing, where the first time was I raised the capital when the market was really hot in April. And then, I started hiring when the market crashed. And, unfortunately, as you all know, lots of people have been getting laid off since the summer, particularly in the tech world: designers, engineers, marketers, et cetera. Now, all of a sudden, there was a flood of really great talent on the market. And that was also what spurred me to start thinking about hiring sooner than I was originally planning to. My forecast was to hire people end of this year, maybe in a month or so from now, to start that process. Versus, we ended up making our first full-time hire, I guess in July, maybe. And it was...the best way I can describe it is like dominoes falling where once you get the first one in, then it builds trust and credibility, and then the next one comes, and the next one. And so the first couple of folks were these two brilliant engineers who were close friends of my interim CTO and classmate, Amit, who was helping us build the foundation of the product this past summer. He did an amazing job of basically recruiting one engineer, Anand, our first engineer who started his career as a PM at Microsoft and then turned into a software engineer at a number of different startups and studied comp sci and electrical engineering at Berkeley with Amit, where they first met. And then the second engineer was Nupur, who was a colleague of Amit, a machine learning engineer at Google Brain and the moonshot X team at Alphabet. And they were both, I think, just kind of tired of big tech and were ready to bet on the upside and their career. And the timing was right based on where the market conditions were. And so they decided to take the leap of faith with me. And then after that, or around that time, kind of in the middle, we were able to bring on our head of design, Jakub, who is like a unicorn human with so much rich experience in the product world. So he was a computer animator and then studied visual arts, but then started his career very early in the coupon website space as a product designer actually. And then led product design as a founding designer at a number of different startups. And then, most recently, was a senior product designer at Roman, which is a really large digital health company similar to Everlywell. And Ro, Everlywell, Truepill, all these companies had mass layoffs in the middle of the summer. And so when Jakub took my call...He talks about a really funny story where he wasn't taking me seriously at all. Convincing these excellent, talented people to come join my dinky startup at the time was not easy. WILL: [laughs] IRFAN: And so he just kind of took it because there was a mutual connection. Or he just said, okay, I'll explore what's going on given how crazy the market is. But once he heard what we were building, he was immediately on board, actually, because Roman has also struggled with the same customer acquisition problems. And it's a huge reason why a lot of these digital health companies continue to remain unprofitable. And so he understood the problem deeper than I think anyone because of the experience he had in the same space that we were in. And he realized that there was an opportunity to build a solution to solve these problems. So that was the first core team. And then from there, it kind of just snowballed, you know, there was more and more interest from other folks to join. And we brought in a great junior product designer. We just hired our platform engineer. But that was the original core team from the summer who took the big leap of faith and joined because of the market conditions, the belief in the space. And we actually just met up in San Diego for the first time for a company retreat in person. And it was just fun meeting everyone in person for the first time because now I get to know them as real people and see all their personalities. And we're really psyched about coming to product launch pretty soon here. VICTORIA: That's wonderful and, you know, that compelling vision and having those first initial people join and brought in everyone else. You know, I think part of the reason people are hesitant to join startups is because there is that reputation for kind of unhealthy work-life balance. So you're a healthcare startup. So how do you start the culture of your company on a level where there is that balance and people want to join because it has a good culture? IRFAN: It's a super interesting question that we spent a lot of time actually talking about in San Diego as a team. And it was brought up because I have a somewhat unhealthy relationship with work. And I am constantly working. And this is the most important thing right now in our life. And so Nupur, one of our engineers, had a phenomenal analogy that I think is the right framework to think about this from a company culture perspective. Because I've always tried to share with a team, like, I don't expect them to work nearly as much as I do, and I don't want them to either. I think the analogy was such a fun, helpful way to think about why that was the case. And so she kind of said, "I'm like the aunt, and you're like the single father. And the aunt doesn't have to take care of the baby at nighttime and on the weekends, but the single father does. And it's not that the aunt doesn't care about the company, but there's some space and boundary in that relationship." And so that's actually our motto right now is like, yeah, we all care about this product and this company, quote, unquote, "baby," but there's always biologically intrinsically going to be a deeper relationship between me and this company, for good reason. And so that is going to require me to work harder and longer than anyone else, probably for a long, long time. And I had to be ready for that. My wife and I had to be ready for that. And so far, honestly, I've never been busier. But I've also never been...or, like, I've never had this ratio between busyness and stress where I'm really busy but not that stressed. And I think it's just because I love what I'm doing every day. I haven't ever found this happy balance where I actually just enjoy what I do. And I'm constantly excited about continuing to build the right product to help people. WILL: Wow. VICTORIA: I'm actually babysitting my niece and nephew this weekend. [laughter] My brother would say, "You need to be here on the weekends with them." IRFAN: Maybe not the perfect analogy. But-- VICTORIA: I like it, though. It makes sense. [laughs] WILL: There's a difference. [laughter] VICTORIA: Oh yeah. Will knows; he's a dad. WILL: Yeah. I know company values can be so...we have them. Do we follow them? Or sometimes they get put on the shelf. I was reading your company values, "People first, bias for curiosity, and dream big." For Frontrow Health, how does that play a role in the day-to-day? IRFAN: When Jakub, Nupur, and Anand had all joined like that first core team, we actually spent time writing all this out and creating a document that discussed what the company culture and values were. And we looked at different examples of other companies. Amazon famously has, I don't know, these 16 principles. And we kind of said, okay, we want to pick just a couple because you can't always focus on everything at the same time. And we need some sort of guiding North Star if you will. And so these were the three that we came up with, the ones that you mentioned. So we are people first; we have a bias for curiosity, and we want to dream big. So people first to us means that our mission like we talked about, we want to increase access to healthcare at home for the average American. And so every decision that we make at the company has to pass that litmus test first. Whatever feature we're building, whatever business model approach we're taking, whatever go–to–market approach that we're taking, is what we're doing going to increase access to healthcare at home for the average American? Yes? Then we continue onwards, and then we continue deliberating and deciding; if not, we pass. And so that is how we determine whether we can continue to be people first because that is our mission. And as we're going down that thread, we want to push ourselves to constantly be bettering and asking questions about how we can be better. That is the bias for curiosity. That was one of Everlywell's company values and was the one that I resonated with the most. I find tremendous value in asking questions. Nupur on our team, one of our engineers, is a great example of bias for curiosity. She's constantly challenging and asking the right questions. And that helps us be better at being people first and increasing access even more than we can because we're never settled with what exists today. And then dreaming big is about finding answers to those questions and not settling for the tried and true paths. Some of the greatest companies that have ever been created are the ones that invent new behaviors that have never existed before. So Airbnb, now all of a sudden, people are comfortable with strangers living in their homes. Uber, now all of a sudden, people are comfortable driving in a stranger's car. At Frontrow Health, we're dreaming big in a world where doctors are not currently engaging with their patients related to their home health and wellness journeys when they leave the four walls of their clinic. How can we change the behavior where doctors are more involved in that relationship in a way that doesn't exist today? And so that's a part of what we're trying to do, and dreaming big to go and increase access, like I said, is our ultimate North Star. WILL: Wow. You said something I think that was...it seemed very small, but I think it said a lot about you and your company. You said that you encourage your engineer to ask the hard questions. I think so many times, people hate the hard questions. They are fearful of that. But I think in your field, you have to be able to ask the hard questions. So that's amazing that you brought that up, and you're talking about that. IRFAN: Yeah. And it doesn't...it's not just me, for sure. I think my team is...and it's kind of you to point that out. But yeah, my team does such a great job of holding true to these values on their own and pushing me to remind myself of these values. Nupur actually is Slacking me right now about some thought that she had coming out of a meeting. WILL: [laughs] IRFAN: And two points about different alternative ways to think about things. And yeah, I want to keep encouraging them and our future employees to do that. Because you look at the worst examples in healthcare, in particular, tech as well, the worst examples of companies are the ones where the employees were not able to or encouraged to ask questions; that's when things go south. So Theranos is the simplest example of this where they were hiding everything from their employees, and people had questions constantly but never asked them. And that's when more and more bad decisions were made. So I don't want that to be the case for Frontrow. And so it has to start with, yeah, this bias for curiosity. VICTORIA: That makes sense. And I wonder if that's part of your success, being someone who doesn't have a background in engineering or programming specifically and enabling your technical team to build what they need to get done. IRFAN: Yeah. I can't honestly explain to you guys how much I've learned over the past six months from my product and dev team. And you're right that I think one could see my lack of programming as a weakness which, in a lot of ways, it is. But what has also manifested as a result of that is I have naturally had to lean more heavily on my dev team to be owners of decisions that affect our business and to challenge them to think about are we being people first if we build and design solutions in the way that you're describing? I don't know the right approach about how to build this, or on what tech stack, or in what capacity we have the ability to. You guys have to take ownership of thinking through those, solving those problems, and coming up with the right decision. And as a founder, that's scary to do. You're giving up control of the decisions to others. But at the same time, by giving them that autonomy and encouraging them to take ownership of it, they feel I think more and more invested in what we're building. And that hopefully builds the habit of what you guys were talking about around wanting to constantly seek better solutions, challenge because they know that they have a voice in how things turn out. VICTORIA: Right. Maybe you've discovered this naturally or through your education and background. But studies that are done around high-performing technology organizations find that no matter what processes or tools you have if you have that high-trust environment, you'll have better security, more software development throughput, all of those things. So I think you're doing it right by setting your values and creating that kind of high-trust environment. IRFAN: Super interesting. I didn't know that, actually, but it makes sense. [laughs] We've been seeing it. I actually want to give some credit to thoughtbot because thoughtbot helped us set a lot of this important engineering culture at the very beginning, where I had to rely on my thoughtbot engineers, folks like Jesse, Dave, and others, to help me make the best decision for my company. They taught me a lot of these things at the earliest stage back in May around, okay, like, you guys are a consulting firm at the end of the day, technically speaking. But they pushed me to think of it more as how do we co-make these decisions? Like, how do we leverage each other's strengths to make the right decisions? The thoughtbot design team and engineering team...one of our designers through thoughtbot, Steven, is so funny because...and I gave him this feedback, which is great feedback, which is like, he constantly asked questions. And if he hears this, he'll laugh because he's constantly pushing, like, "Why are we designing it this way? Why do you think it should be this way? Where is the evidence that the user wants it to be this way?" And it was a great setup for when our internal team came on because I just kept up that momentum. And then they just kind of took with it and ran. VICTORIA: How did you find us, or how did you find the right technical partners in the very beginning to help you build your vision? IRFAN: It was not an immediately simple process. But when I found thoughtbot, it kind of unraveled quite quickly in a good way. So I was working with Amit like I mentioned, who'll become our interim CTO, one of my classmates at HBS. And he helped me put together an RFP where we outlined all the different feature requirements, all the different intentions for our solution or timeline, our costs, et cetera. And I just did a lot of Google research about different dev shops, and I started talking to dev shops in lots of different locations, U.S.-based, European-based, Asian-based, Latin America-based, started comparing prices. We had questions where we wanted to see their creativity in developing solutions. We started accepting proposals, reviewing those proposals. I somehow stumbled upon thoughtbot's website during this process. And I noticed that Everlywell was one of thoughtbot's clients, Everlywell, the home lab testing company that I used to work at before business school. I was like, oh wow. I knew that our engineering team and our engineering leadership had a really high bar for when we worked with outsourced talent. And so I thought that that spoke volumes about choosing thoughtbot. And so then we actually ended up asking Everlywell CTO an unprompted question of like, "If you had to pick any dev house that you've known or have worked with, et cetera, that was supposed to build you custom software from scratch, who would you pick?" And he said, "thoughtbot." It wasn't even like a question of, what do you think of thoughtbot? Or, what was your experience? It was just like, imagine you had to pick, and, unprompted, he said thoughtbot. So that was actually what did it for me. And I kind of threw aside all the other logistical hoopla that we were going through and said, you know, I got to trust the people who I know and trust, and having verbal confirmation of that was huge. And then, of course, I enjoyed speaking with Dawn at thoughtbot, who was helping broker the whole discussion, and it felt easy. And their proposal was also quite strong. And then, as I dug deeper into thoughtbot, it became clear that no pun intended, you guys are kind of the thought leaders in a lot of ways. WILL: [laughs] IRFAN: It's funny, our head of design, Jakub, when I mentioned that he's a unicorn, it's because he also taught himself coding and programming. WILL: Wow. IRFAN: So he's like a pseudo designer and programmer. He can do a little bit of everything. And he actually...when I told him that we were working with thoughtbot, he was like, "Oh, I learned Ruby on Rails back in the day from thoughtbot with whatever content they had published back in time." And then, as I spoke to other dev shops about going with thoughtbot, they started saying things like, "Oh, thoughtbot, yeah, they're kind of the OGs of Rails and a lot of the core tech stack that's been around for a while." And so it was just continued validation of the right approach. And then, we started working with the team in May, right after my second semester of business school ended. And it's been an incredible process. We have never missed any deadlines, and we're actually two months ahead of schedule. And it's not just because they're good at what they do, but it's also because of the culture and the teaching me about the best way to run retros, and sprint planning, and things to think about in terms of trust in your engineer and building that trust, and all the soft, intangible things. It wasn't just like thoughtbot came in and built code. It was thoughtbot came in and helped establish the company in a lot of ways. VICTORIA: That's great to hear. Thank you for saying all those wonderful things. I'm sure me and Will agree 100%. [laughter] IRFAN: Yeah, it's been an awesome process. And yeah, we've even ended up basically bringing on as a full-time independent contractor someone who worked through thoughtbot because we love them so much. And they were just so excellent at what they did. And just, yeah, I think that probably speaks the most volumes about the kind of organization that you guys are running. WILL: I appreciate you saying that. That means a lot. It really does. I want to take a second to kind of circle back and kind of talk about how you find the providers because I think, for me, one of the most influential classes I had in college was my professor said, "Hey, meet me at the pharmacy." So we went to the pharmacy, and he started asking us questions. And he was like, "What medicine do you think would be the most impactful?" And we would try to pull it out. He taught us how to compare the active ingredients. IRFAN: Wow. WILL: Like how some stuff is just marketing, and it's not really helpful and things like that. But I also saw the side, you know, the amazing providers like your parents. You talking about your parents just reminded me of my parents and how supportive they are. So it's just amazing. You had your parents as providers. How did you find providers beyond that that you have to extend that trust to them? IRFAN: I guess two reactions. The first is how do we talk to doctors to get feedback on our solution as we're building it? And then how do we get doctors to sign up and use our solution with their patients? Those are the two chronological steps. So for the first one, we very liberally use a platform called usertesting.com, which we used at Everlywell, where I first got introduced to it. And it's amazing. We have the unlimited package, and we run tons of user tests a day. So, over the summer, we were literally having unmoderated tests from medical professionals, about ten healthcare professionals a day who were coming to our website, coming to our product, giving their feedback through these unmoderated tests. We were quantitatively assessing qualitatively assessing their responses to specific questions that we were asking them. Like, was it easy enough to write a review? What were you expecting to see? How did that compare to what you did see? Like, all the traditional kind of user research. They really helped us build the product, and then we were able to follow up with them, get on the phone with them, ask them more questions about their experience, about their current experience in their clinic, whether patients are asking them about these things, about their interest in certain supplements, et cetera. And then we actually had one medical provider, a family practice nurse practitioner from Vermont, who was so excited about what we were building. She was sending me all this other information and content about how to reach out to other doctors and stuff. And then, at the end of the summer, when we were just about ready to start getting our beta off the ground, we were going to choose one provider to work with who was going to recommend it to their patients, and they were going to slowly kind of monitor the experience. This nurse practitioner actually just happened to reach back out, and we happened to connect again. And she's like, "Okay, what are you guys up to? Are you guys done with your product? I really want to use it." And I was like, "Oh, wow. Well, it's great timing because we're looking for our first medical provider." WILL: [laughs] IRFAN: And so that's where we ended up launching beta with, which was awesome. And since then, I've been spending a lot of time thinking about the go-to-market approach beyond just one medical provider. How do we scale to thousands of medical providers? And luckily, selling to doctors is a solved problem, like; the biopharma and medical device industry has been doing this for decades. And so it was really just a part of me brushing up on a lot of the work that I was doing in life science consulting about helping Big Pharma and whatnot go to market and just stealing a lot of notes out of their playbook. So, for example, there are companies that allow you to run ads online that just target physicians. So instead of my dad seeing a Lululemon ad while he's reading The Wall Street Journal, he'll see an ad for Frontrow Health. And so we actually run marketing tests over the summer, towards the end of the summer, with a newer provider landing page that we had built to see what percent were going to click on the ads, what percent were going to come to the website and sign up, and then how much cost would that be per acquisition of a provider. And the results were actually much better than we thought. It was half as expensive as what we originally predicted, which is awesome. WILL: Wow. IRFAN: And that was before Jakub, our new head of design, had even touched the website. We're actually just revamping it right now because he's been going through and revamping other aspects of our product and marketing experience. And now we're at the provider part. So we're actually going to be just about a week or so away from launching the marketing tests and actually getting every day more providers on the platform. The product is now done, so they can start getting their patients on the platform. We just signed our first health brand. So now people are getting real product recommendations and getting ability to earn cashback. And we can be revenue generating, which is also super exciting that we're, like I said, a couple of months ahead of schedule, actually. VICTORIA: That's really exciting, and that certainly sounds like enough on your plate. But is there anything else on the horizon for Frontrow Health that you're excited about? IRFAN: Yes. We are super excited that we're just coming out of stealth mode and launching our full product experience for consumers, medical providers, and DTC health brands. Going forward into 2023, we're really looking to try to find this quote, unquote, "product market fit." Are doctors excited about signing up and getting their patients on the platform? Are those patients excited about the products that we're selling on our marketplace? And are we delivering new lifetime customers for these health brands at a more cost-effective rate than they've ever seen before? And solving that original problem that came to me while I was at Everlywell. And by doing all three of those things, hopefully, we'll begin to increase access to healthcare at home where people who are not suburban high-income folks who can afford to pay out of pocket for preventative healthcare; we can now make that more equitable by bringing down the cost through the cashback, by introducing the element of trust, by engaging with a medical provider, and by opening up people's eyes to thousands of different consumer health and wellness companies that now exist in the world that we want to be able to connect the right products to the right people with. VICTORIA: That's so exciting. I'm really glad we got a chance to talk to you today and hear more about your story. Is there anything else that you want to add before we wrap up? IRFAN: This has been super fun being able to even just reflect and think about our whole story. For anyone else listening who's interested or excited about entrepreneurship, there's a really good book that I read last summer as I started thinking about entrepreneurship for the first time called "The Hard Thing About Hard Things" written by Ben Horowitz, who co-founded the VC fund, Andreessen Horowitz. He was an entrepreneur himself. And it's one of my favorite books because, as the title [laughs] explains, it just talks about the difficulty of the experience and the journey that's still ahead of me. But I think the overall takeaway of the book and my experience over the past year is that it's just the single greatest learning experience of my life. And that's actually really all I'm trying to optimize for personally is I want to keep growing and learning, and learning about the space, learning about myself, learning about how to work on a team, how to lead a team, how to grow a team. And if you're at all interested in any of those things, keep trying to think about all the right problems that are being experienced in the world. And we still live in a world wrought with problems and don't have nearly enough founders trying to go and solve all of them. VICTORIA: That's a really great perspective, I think, to bring to it about your own personal growth. And that's what it's really all about. [laughs] And hopefully, we're able to solve some big challenging problems along the way. IRFAN: Hope so. WILL: You can subscribe to this show and find notes along with a complete transcript for this episode at giantrobots.fm. VICTORIA: If you have questions or comments, email us at hosts@giantrobots.fm. WILL: You can find me on Twitter @will23larry. VICTORIA: And you can find me on Twitter @victori_ousg. This podcast is brought to you by thoughtbot and produced and edited by Mandy Moore. WILL: Thanks for listening. See you next time. ANNOUNCER: This podcast is brought to you by thoughtbot, your expert strategy, design, development, and product management partner. We bring digital products from idea to success and teach you how because we care. Learn more at thoughtbot.com. Special Guest: Irfan Alam.

In this episode, Scott Becker shares 12 notes & headlines on what is currently happening in the venture capital space of healthcare.A huge explosion in HC VC in 2020 and 2021. Both fundraising and investing.A significant slowdown in 2022 particularly the 2nd half of 2022.There are lots of funds that do a huge number of smaller investments. Funds like Rock Health, Arch Venture Partners, New Enterprise, 7Wire Ventures, Martin Ventures, Flare Capital, Costonoa and Khosla for example.There are also mega funds that tend to make much larger investments per deal. For example, funds like Sequoia, A16Z (Andreessen Horowitz) General Catalyst, Tiger Global, Kleiner Perkins, Norwest and more. Remiss to not mention rock star investment firms Frist Cressey and Thoma Bravo. Amazing what Bill Frist has accomplished. Bill Frist, M.D.There are an increasing number of partnerships between VC funds and health systems and payors. General Catalyst has really made great advances here. See also “Venture Capital firms are partnering with healthcare organizations to improve digital health” Forbes Sai Balasubramanian, M.D., J.D.There are also an increasing number of systems that have funded and self manage or outsource their only venture efforts. For example, Advocate Aurora Enterprises led by Scott Powder. Providence Ventures formerly led by Aaron Martin and a ton more. Kaiser Ventures et Al.Earlier Series A rounds (and seed rounds) tend to be much smaller than larger rounds.VC investing generally is more binary than PE investing. Pre Ebitda vs Post Ebitda investing. VC studies show that an overwhelming majority of profits come from 10 to 20% of investing and more than 50% of investments barely return the invested capital. Generally the earlier stage the higher risk.Healthcare venture can include several different sectors- digital health, provider health, biotech, pharma, diagnostics and devices.See Modern Healthcare opinion piece by Eric Epstein and Douglas French "Healthcare Venture Capital Potentially Peaked-Now What".See also WSJ " Digital Health Venture Funding Pulls Back From Last year".Also see Kaiser Health News "Mission and money clash in non profit hospitals' venture capital ambitions." Kaiser Health News.

Amanda L. Goltz, MPA is the U.S. Lead for Worldwide Healthcare Venture Capital and Startups at Amazon Web Services (AWS), responsible for managing a portfolio of digital health companies and driving opportunities with AWS's enterprise healthcare and life sciences business. In a previous role at Amazon, Amanda led partnerships to power voice AI experiences at Alexa Health and Wellness. Before coming to Amazon, Amanda was Vice President of Digital Innovation at BTG (now Boston Scientific), a global medtech, managing the portfolio of digital initiatives combining clinical interventions, device technology, and digital services to incorporate the patient experience and improve measurable outcomes. As part of this role, Amanda founded Oncoverse, a software startup in cancer care, in a joint venture with CommonSpirit Health. Previously, Amanda was the Director of Product Strategy and Innovation at Aetna, sourcing emerging solutions from the digital health and innovative networks marketplace, pairing them with employer clients, and directing implementation of the solutions at scale. Amanda has led innovation and strategy initiatives at Pacific Business Group on Health, a large employer coalition; the State of California, MassGeneralBrigham, and New York City Health and Hospitals Corporation. Amanda advises several start-up companies as a mentor for the Alexa Fund, 500Startups, Rock Health, and StartXMed, the health and life sciences incubator for Stanford University.

Meet Leslie Norwalk: Katie is the CEO of RockHealth.org, an organization that builds community and advances solutions for those who need it most to ensure that digital health works for all. Previously, Katie curated health content for the Aspen Ideas Festival and was Managing Director of the Aspen Global Innovators Group, where she led global efforts to address poverty alleviation, human rights, and social justice. Katie has also worked nationally and around the world on initiatives including HIV/AIDS treatment strategies in Romania, private health services delivery in Myanmar, and the scale up of Kenya's national emergency medical system.Key Insights: Katie Drasser discusses what she has learned about leadership from her experience in both the nonprofit and for-profit sectors.The Power of the Collective. Katie believes that what we can do together translates to public health. We can understand a person, a community, a family, and a system better by understanding health.Launching Rock Health. Katie is driven by her passion for helping people, and her ability to identify opportunities when they are most needed. Rock Health invests in the next generation digital health pioneers and advises major corporations on how to lead in this new world.Knowing Where to Lead. Part of being a leader is knowing when to lead and when to lean on others. Katie thinks about who is going to have the most impact when, how, and where, and she supports others to do the same.This episode is hosted by Sanjula Jain, Ph.D. She is a member of the Advisory Council for Her Story, co-founder of Think Medium, and the SVP, Market Strategy and Chief Research Officer at Trilliant Health. Relevant Links: o Read more about Katie Drasser and Rock Healtho Follow Katie Drasser on Twitter

Today, we're excited to get to know Caitlin Reiche, Chief Commercial Officer at Zus Health — the first Chief Commercial Officer we've had on the podcast! Founded in 2020, Zus Health is a health data platform designed to accelerate healthcare data interoperability by providing easy-to-use patient data at the point of care. At Zus, Caitlin leads the commercial organization with the goal of growing the Zus builder community and is responsible for marketing, sales, partnerships and customer success. Prior to Zus, Caitlin was the Chief Operating Officer of Buoy Health and led Product Strategy at Patient Pop and Athenahealth. She graduated with a MS in Health Policy and Management from Harvard Chan School of Public Health and a BA in Psychology from Middlebury College. In 2021, Zus raised a $34M Series A financing led by Andreessen Horowitz and followed by F-Prime, Maverick, Rock Health, Oxeon and more. In this episode, Caitlin shares about her various roles in health tech, building community in the health tech space, the new era of Data as a Service companies, and what it means to be a Chief Commercial Officer at a quickly-growing startup.

As COP27 unfolds in Sharm El-Sheikh. John and Simar are joined by Ryan Panchadsaram, Co-Author of Speed & Scale, advisor at Kleiner Perkins, and formerly Former U.S. Deputy Chief Technology Officer. Drawing on Ryan's experience and knowledge they unpack : - Ryan's backstory - Speed & Scale as a blueprint and plan to mobilize collective action towards tackling the climate crisis - Where and how technology can help service this mission - A resounding CTA for both individuals, companies, and governments to strive towards the Climate goals being discussed at COP27 - A whole lot more... See below... #cop27 #2030 #climateaction #unitednations Individuals Mentioned: John Doerr https://twitter.com/johndoerr Todd Park https://www.linkedin.com/in/todd-park-3232573/ Bill Gates https://twitter.com/billgates Al Gore https://algore.com/ Christiana Figueres https://unfccc.int/about-us/the-executive-secretary/former-executive-secretary-ms-christiana-figueres Companies/ Organizations/Gov Departments Mentioned: KleinerPerkins https://www.kleinerperkins.com/ Speed & Scale https://speedandscale.com/tracker/ Department of Health and Human Services https://www.hhs.gov/ United States Digital Service https://www.usds.gov/ Rock Health https://rockhealth.com/ Unilever https://www.unilever.com/planet-and-society/climate-action/ Chevron https://www.chevron.com/ Shell https://www.shell.com/energy-and-innovation/the-energy-future/our-climate-target.html#iframe=L3dlYmFwcHMvY2xpbWF0ZV9hbWJpdGlvbi8 NASA, Methane leaks https://www.nasa.gov/feature/jpl/methane-super-emitters-mapped-by-nasa-s-new-earth-space-mission FlowCarbon https://www.flowcarbon.com/ Climate Draft https://www.climatedraft.org/ Breakthrough Energy Ventures https://breakthroughenergy.org/ Lower carbon https://lowercarboncapital.com/ School of Sustainability Stanford https://sustainability.stanford.edu/ UN mentions: The Paris agreement https://unfccc.int/process-and-meetings/the-paris-agreement/the-paris-agreement COP27 https://unfccc.int/cop27 COP26 https://ukcop26.org/ UN integrity Measures https://www.unglobalcompact.org/about/integrity-measures OKRs https://www.whatmatters.com/ Timestamps 00:00 Intro 03:10 Ryan's Story 07:00 What are you most curious of? 09:16 Why Speed & Scale Exists 13:37 Solutions & Accelerants 16:25 What are you seeing since the plan is out? 19:30 Code reds Methane, Coal, Beef, Nature.. 23:29 COP27 26:40 Coordination at a global level 29:30 Sustainability School of Stanford 32:44 Carbon Removal 35:36 View on Carbon Markets 41:00 Natural Market Trends 46:10 Growth/De-Growth 48:16 Re-designing Money & Deploying Capital 56:29 CTA -------------------------------------------- Connect with Ryan and check out Speed & Scale https://twitter.com/rypan https://speedandscale.com -------------------------------------------- Join the conversation on Twitter, follow: https://twitter.com/ReFiDAOist https://twitter.com/climateXcrypto https://twitter.com/simarsmangat https://twitter.com/johnx25bd Thanks to our friends at Feed Ignite for the podcast and micro-content production: https://feedignite.com --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/refipodcast/message

Host Halle Tecco talks with two of her favorite long-time colleagues in digital health: Chrissy Farr and Malay Gandhi.Chrissy started her career in this space as a digital health reporter for VentureBeat, FastCompany, and CNBC before becoming a venture capitalist at OMERS ventures.Malay started his career in management consulting before joining me at Rock Health where he served as Managing Director and CEO before going onto be an EIR at Greylock Partners, an executive at Eviction Health, and now Head of Strategy & Corporate Development at Benching.The episode transcript is available here at http://www.heartofhealthcarepodcast.com/episodes/chrissy-farr-malay-gandhiVisit the Heart of Healthcare website for more.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Inspired by her own challenges with fertility a few years ago, serial entrepreneur Halle Tecco saw a tremendous opportunity to rebuild the fertility and pregnancy experience for families from the ground up. She wanted to bring a human-centered approach to physical products that were largely designed and sold by male-owned incumbents in the space. She came home one day after interviewing a few potential CEOs and told her husband, "I'm so sorry. I know I said I wouldn't start a company, but I think that I have to do this, I'm just so passionate about it." With those words, Halle founded Natalist to offer fertility and pregnancy essentials for women and men who wanted a better solution, just like her. The company was acquired in October of 2021 by Everly Health where Halle now serves as vice president, focusing on developing and supporting women's health strategy across the organization. Check out this episode of Raise the Line as host Shiv Gaglani sits down with Halle to hear all about her journey as an entrepreneur in the healthcare space, and discuss the many obstacles and challenges women still face navigating the healthcare system today.

Curious about the latest thinking in digital healthcare? Want to know how your family might access specific types of health services in the not-too-distant future? Spend thirty minutes with Megan Zweig, COO of Rock Health, and learn what challenges creators and developers are thinking about and working on. The conversation is fast paced, expansive and informative, enjoy!

In this minisode, Mindy and Ryan examine a few recent newsworthy items including trends impacting digital health funding (0:48), the newly operational 988 mental health and suicide crisis line (4:00), the latest impacts on the healthcare industry post Roe v. Wade (6:45), and discussions regarding the future of the 340B prescription drug program (13:49).  Podcast Tags: healthcare, healthcare news, women's health, reproductive health, public health, providers, Roe v. Wade, mental health, maternal health, digital health, Medicaid, prescription drugs, Life SciencesSource Links: · H1 2022 digital health funding: Two sides to every correction | Rock Health · https://www.fiercehealthcare.com/digital-health/market-downturn-dampens-digital-health-funding-ma-2022-here-are-sectors-raked-most  · https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2022/07/15/1111316589/988-suicide-hotline-number · https://apnews.com/article/abortion-bills-house-vote-fc24d99f184d7aeec4926a6520311da5 · Characteristics of U.S. Abortion Patients in 2014 and Changes Since 2008 | Guttmacher Institute· https://www.advisory.com/blog/2022/07/abortion-restrictions?utm_source=public_db&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=2022jul13&utm_content=public_headline_public_blog_x_x_x&elq_cid=4793240&x_id= · https://thehill.com/homenews/senate/3559360-gop-senator-blocks-bill-to-protect-interstate-travel-for-abortion/ · https://www.hrsa.gov/about/organization/bureaus/opae/hrsa-information-quality-guidelines/agency-mission · Merck joins other drugmakers in cutting off sales to 340B contract pharmacies | Fierce Healthcare· https://www.fiercehealthcare.com/providers/merck-sues-hhs-avoid-fine-over-340b-contract-pharmacy-restrictions  For additional discussion, please contact us at TrendingHealth.com or share a voicemail at 1-888-VYNAMIC. Mindy McGrath, Healthcare Industry Advisor mindy.mcgrath@vynamic.comRyan Hummel, Executive and Head of Provider Sectorryan.hummel@vynamic.com

One of the more prominent news in July was that according to Sifted, healthcare seed investments in Europe surpassed Fintech investments in June, making the health tech industry the industry that's attracting the most investments. At the same time, in the US, Rock Health reported that digital health startups in the US raised 10.3 billion USD in the first half year of 2022, and StartupHealth reported a lower amount of investments compared to 2021. As StartupHealth noted, the 16B raised globally in Q1 and Q2, is still much more than in the first half of the year 2020. You can tune into a reflection on the current state of digital health globally by listening to the interview with the Startup Health president Unity Stoakes in April:  https://www.facesofdigitalhealth.com/blog/startup-health-unity-stoakes This episode takes a look at the European market and how aescuvest invests in digital health startups. We also talk about the rising problem of digital visual stress.  Speakers:  Simon Molitor, Associate Project Manager at Aescuvest,  Michael Mrochern, Member of Investment Committee aescuvest and the CEO of Vivior which offers a novel wearable device – the Vivior Monitor – to objectively measure visual behavior prior to vision correction interventions. www.facesofdigitalhealth.com  Monthly newsletter: https://fodh.substack.com/p/a-glimpse-in-digital-health-and-healthcare  https://www.aescuvest.eu/  https://vivior.com/  https://eithealth.eu/in-your-region/germany/  This episode is supported by EIT Health Germany, which is one of eight Knowledge and Innovation Communities (KICs) currently funded by the European Institute of Innovation and Technology (EIT). Find out more about startup opportunities in 2022.

Rock Health's report is out for Digital Health Funding for the first half of the year and it is looking like the roaring 2021 was the anomaly as funding recedes to 2020 levels. More on Today. https://www.fiercehealthcare.com/digital-health/market-downturn-dampens-digital-health-funding-ma-2022-here-are-sectors-raked-most (https://www.fiercehealthcare.com/digital-health/market-downturn-dampens-digital-health-funding-ma-2022-here-are-sectors-raked-most)

If you're early in your career and feeling like clinical medicine isn't the right path for you, you're not alone. Many physicians struggle with the decision about whether or not to leave residency. It can be hard to know if these feelings are temporary or not and whether “sticking it out” will be beneficial for your future career. Today I'm talking with Dr. Sam Kessel, who realized during his intern year that clinical medicine was not the right path for him. He'll discuss how he made the tough decision to leave residency and why his new career as a consultant is a great fit for his passion, personality, and goals.  You can find the show notes for this episode and more information by clicking here: www.doctorscrossing.com/85   In this episode we're talking about: How the pandemic influenced Dr. Kessel's intern year experience Why Sam decided to pursue an MBA during medical school What a strategy consultant does and how to learn more about the field Factors to assess if you're considering leaving residency The power of LinkedIn for connecting with others who share your interests Why Dr. Kessel is so passionate about the intersection of medicine and technology Steps physicians can take to explore consulting roles   Links for this episode: Dr. Kessel's LinkedIn  Episode 79: Find fun and flexibility as a consultant Rock Health podcast MDisrupt - A site to connect health experts with digital health companies to help bring impactful products to market quickly and responsibly.  STAT biotech podcast LinkedIn for Physicians Course - Would you rather clean out your garage or attic than “put yourself out there” and network? No worries! My LinkedIn course is geared to make networking doable and fun. I will show you how to connect with people who can be helpful for your career, what to put in your messages, and how to apply strategically for the job you really want. You can learn more about this course and get a sneak peek inside right HERE. 

RockMercury.com --- This episode is sponsored by · Anchor: The easiest way to make a podcast. https://anchor.fm/app --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/rockmercury/message Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/rockmercury/support

In the penultimate episode of the first season of BYOB: The Healthcare Podcast, the team sits down to speak with a great friend, Derick Simmons. Derick works as a Strategy Consultant for Rock Health Advisory. Rock Health is a full-service seed fund that supports startups working in digital health. Rock Health offers funding, access to medical, venture, legal and corporate partners, and office space to its portfolio companies. Additionally, Rock Health offers advisory services to clients across healthcare in the advancement of digital health strategies. In his role, Derick aligns with large players across the industry to converge what digital health is advancing with how their clients can move the needle forward in their respective organizations. Derick Simmons – Strategy Consultant at Rock Health Derick is a consultant at Rock Health where he supports healthcare, life sciences, and tech clients to develop digital health strategies. Prior to Rock Health, he was a transformation consultant at an integrated health system where he advised senior executives on digital health strategy, entrepreneurial partnerships, and new ventures. Derick earned an MHA from Cornell University and a B.S. in Management and Organizational Behavior from BYU. Before completing his academic training, he worked as a healthcare venture capital associate, researcher, and consultant—and also completed two years of volunteer mission service in Romania and Moldova. The crew asked Derick the following questions: You have focused more on the investment and innovation side of healthcare, what drew you to this area of healthcare? You currently serve as a consultant at Rock Health. What is Rock Health and what does your work entail? How is Rock health different from other Venture Capital/Private Equity firms? Are there specific types of innovations that Rock Health is interested in? Can you share an example of a company that Rock Health is invested in? What advice do you have for someone interested in the venture capital side of healthcare and wants to get more involved? What types of qualities does Rock Health look for in their health team and how can someone who is interested in Rock Health get their foot in the door? What do you think are some of the big challenges in healthcare that tech companies are best suited to solve? Grab a drink and join us for another episode of BYOB: The Healthcare Podcast! --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/byob-health/message

Welcome to the Guerilla Muse podcast with Resmaa. Today, I will be engaging with Kevin Dedner. He serves as founder and CEO of Washington-D.C.-based Hurdle, which provides culturally intentional teletherapy to eliminate barriers that make it harder for people of color to get mental health care.Kevin is deeply connected to Hurdle's mission, having suffered a period of depression where he found the biggest challenge to effective care was finding the right therapist who could truly understand and connect with his struggles as an African American man. His company equips mental health professionals with the skills needed to effectively address issues of race, ethnicity, class, and culture and exists to ensure people can show up whole, operate with joy, and live with power. Kevin recently penned his first book, The Joy of the Disinherited: Essays on Oppression, Trauma and Black Mental Health. Through honest, captivating, and humane stories of his past and eye-opening research into the effects of racism on mental health, Kevin argues in his book that we must knock down the invisible barriers to mental healthcare.An award-winning public speaker, Kevin has over 20 years of public health experience. He currently serves as an Optum Clinical and Scientific Advisory Council member. In 2021, Kevin was named one of the top 50 in Digital Health by Rock Health. He was also recently named one of 75 Black healthcare leaders to know by Becker's Hospital Review.Kevin is a graduate of the University of Arkansas in Fayetteville and has a Master of Public Health from Benedictine University in Illinois.

In this episode of Health Tech Deals, Jess thinks the music has stopped as Rock Health reports Q1's funding total being below Q4 2022! No $100m rounds today! But still $37m for Real; $40m for Iris Telehealth; only $16m for 9am Health but lots of Livongo connections; $30m for Eko and $15m for Papa-lookalike Duos

In this episode of Health Tech Deals, Jess thinks the music has stopped as Rock Health reports Q1's funding total being below Q4 2022! No $100m rounds today! But still $37m for Real; $40m for Iris Telehealth; only $16m for 9am Health but lots of Livongo connections; $30m for Eko and $15m for Papa-lookalike Duos

In this episode, Ed interviews President of Rock Health, Tom Cassels. They discuss Rock Health as a startup and how a company can be a disruptor in their industry by being customer focused, clinically competent, and a better choice than your competition. 

This is an extra special episode of The VentureFizz Podcast as it is a milestone episode - welcome to Episode 250! This means we have over 10 days worth of entrepreneurial and investor interviews! For Episode 250, I couldn't think of a better guest than Jonathan Bush, Founder & CEO of Zus Health. Yes, his last name is Bush, as in the same Bush family where his uncle and cousin were both president of the United States. Jonathan has been following his own journey as a very successful healthcare entrepreneur. He co-founded and led athenahealth to a public offering with this early cloud based healthcare software provider. His latest company, Zus Health, is an even larger swing, as the company is looking to build out the platform to disrupt the healthcare industry the same way Stripe disrupted payments by building the industry's first shared development platform backed by a shared data record. The company is venture backed with financing led by Andreessen Horowitz (a16z). F-Prime Capital, Maverick Ventures, Rock Health, Martin Ventures and Oxeon Investments also participated in the round. In this episode of our podcast, we cover: * Trends across the healthcare and tech industry. * His background growing up and how his time spent as an EMT and a combat medic gave him the inside look at the inefficiencies across the healthcare industry. * The full lifecycle story of athenahealth in terms of the original business model and how the company evolved to being the leading provider of cloud based services for electronic medical records, revenue cycle management, medical billing, and more. * All the details on Zus Health and how they are disrupting the healthcare industry, plus the details on their growth plans ahead. * An overview of Firefly Health where Jonathan is the company's Executive Chairman. * Advice for first time founders on building startups in the healthcare industry. * And so much more. If you like the show, please remember to subscribe and review us on iTunes, Soundcloud, Spotify, Stitcher, or Google Play.

Sari Kaganoff, head of consulting for Rock Health, unpacks the numbers and interprets the directional signs behind last year's frenzied funding environment for digital health, including how life science companies are partnering with digital health players.

Today on Health in 2 Point 00, the funding reports are out: Rock Health is saying $14.7 billion for the first half of the year, and Startup Health is saying $20.1 billion. Those numbers are pretty much what the numbers were for ALL of 2020. Now onto some deals: on Episode 221, Jess asks me about Novacardia raising $57 million for its cardiology practice management business. Wellthy raises $25 million, bringing its total up to $50 million – this is a caregiving navigation concierge firm aimed at employers. Osso VR raises $27 million in a Series B, less than a year after closing their A, working on virtual reality for practicing surgery. Finally, Form Health raises $12 million in a Series A for its obesity telehealth platform.

Join us for a conversation with Frank Jaskulke and Sari Kaganoff, General Manager of Consulting at Rock Health. Frank and Sari discuss SPACs — what they are, and how they've impacted the world of digital health startups — as well as other topics surrounding the hurdles facing healthcare startups.

In our latest episode, I had a chance to chat with Kelsey Mellard, Founder and CEO of Sitka. Sitka is a peer-to-peer, asynchronous video messaging platform and specialist network. Sitka connects clinicians to top specialists, alleviating the challenges of scheduling and geographic limitations and compressing the cycle of care by enabling rapid decision making. Sitka is backed by Optum Ventures, First Round Capital, Rock Health, Homebrew, Box Group, and Lifeforce Capital. Kelsey shares insights into the role telehealth plays in the transition to value-based care, how Sitka is bringing specialty expertise to the front lines, and the importance of trust, transparency, and reliability in healthcare delivery. We also reflect on Kelsey's personal career journey prior to founding Sitka, where Kelsey held positions at Honor Homecare, naviHealth, UnitedHealth Group, the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Innovation and the Kaiser Family Foundation.

In our latest episode, I had a chance to chat with Sari Kaganoff, General Manager of Consulting at Rock Health. As GM of Consulting, Sari advises healthcare and life sciences companies on digital health strategy. Founded in 2010 by HBS alumni Halle Tecco and Nate Gross, Rock Health is an early stage venture fund that supports startups working in digital health and has an advisory services business that supports enterprise companies. Rock Health keeps a pulse on the digital health industry, publishing annual reports on digital health funding, consumer adoption, equity in digital health and many other topics and also convenes leaders at industry events, including Rock Health Summit and Digital Health Top 50. Sari shares insights on the growth and evolution of the digital health industry: from modernization/digitization to fundamentally re-thinking how care is delivered. We chat about how to distinguish between noise vs. signal in an increasingly crowded space, the most promising areas for innovation, and her advice to digital health entrepreneurs. Prior to Rock Health, Sari worked at McKinsey & Company for seven years where she co-led McKinsey's Health Tech Network and Patient Experience Domain. Prior to McKinsey she received an MBA with honors from the University of Chicago Booth School of Business. Before her MBA she worked at a healthcare startup, was an equities trader at a fintech startup, and earned an undergraduate degree in Technology and Communications from Michlalah Jerusalem College.

Halle Tecco is the CEO and Founder of Natalist, a company proudly ‘funded, founded, and led by moms' specializing in fertility and pregnancy products. After graduating with a BS in Finance, she moved to Silicon Valley and in 2010 was a Business Development Manager for Apple, developing health and medical apps. The same year she also founded Rock Health, the first venture fund dedicated to digital health and since 2007 has angel invested in over 100 companies. Halle has an MBA from Harvard Business School and an MPH from John Hopkins Bloomsberg School of Public Health. She has featured in many media publications, with SF Chronicle listing her amongst ‘The Most Powerful Women in Technology' and charting in Forbes ‘30 under 30'. Today Halle joins us to share her unique journey from Finance graduate in Cleveland Ohio to Angel investor and CEO with a huge portfolio of companies to her name. She discusses her time at Harvard Business School and what she learned both from the MBA course and the people she met through it. Halle reveals the pivotal moment a family crisis made her reassess her work life balance and approach to office hours, and why she will never go back to those ‘workaholic' days. She also shares her personal story of fertility and IVF experience, and how this difficult period became the inspiration for Natalist, an empathetic brand for women with a goal to create better women's health products. “You're the first but don't be the last.” - Halle Tecco This week on SocialFly's Entreprenista Podcast: Why you should be a generalist AND specialist entrepreneurHalle's essential tips for venture capitalists Why you should only work with investors who believe in youHow to make your cold email stand out from the othersWhy you should always seek feedback from your investorsWhy a healthy workplace requires boundaries Our Favorite Quotes: “As soon as you start to think of women, and other women as on your side and people that you want to help, that comes back to you in the world.” - Halle Tecco“Don't go into an industry or new opportunity with the combative competitive mindset, but rather with the mindset of a rising tide lifts all boats, and what I can do to help others.” - Halle Tecco “You have to work at it. You really have to set boundaries and stick to them.” - Halle Tecco Resources Mentioned: Kindbody - Fertility & Wellness Connect with Halle Tecco: Natalist WebsiteNatalist on InstagramNatalist on LinkedInNatalist on TwitterRock Health WebsiteHalle Tecco on InstagramHalle Tecco on LinkedInHalle Tecco on FacebookHalle Tecco on Twitter Say “Hello!” To DigiCards™ Are you ready to take your virtual team meetings to the next level? Are you tired of yelling “You're on mute!” at your computer screen and letting the important points you were trying to make get lost? If you're tired of leading unproductive, distraction-filled team meetings, then it's time for you to say “Hello!” to DigiCards. Each pack of virtual meeting cards include 20 color-coded professional cards designed to streamline your meeting communications while allowing each meeting to create an opportunity for collaboration and fun. Say “Goodbye!” to waving your arms, being ignored, and frantically typing in the chat. Start your next virtual meeting with DigiCards - the virtual meeting cards for entreprenistas. To grab your deck of DigiCards and bring fun, engagement, and collaboration back into your team meetings, visit www.hellodigicards.com. Use the coupon code: Entreprenista10 to receive 10% off your first order.

“Be a generalist and a specialist at the same time.” There lies the secret to Halle Tecco's inspiring success: from investing in over 100 companies (including big names like Kindbody and Robyn) to launching both Rock Health and more recently Natalist, her path is unique and full of learnings. You're about to hear Halle share stories from her early days working in Silicon Valley, to a pivotal moment that made her rethink her work/life balance, and finally the launch of Natalist - her latest venture which offers conception products that are inspired by beauty and science. She also shares essential tips for founders looking to raise venture capital - including the rising value of a cold intro, and the importance of timing.  Coming up, you'll hear: How Halle kicked off her career in finance, and quickly realized her sweet spot was at the intersection of healthcare and businessBeing in Silicon Valley in 2006, and how she grew her first company Rock HealthA pivotal moment in Halle's life that forced her to rethink her work/life balance and make a big change Halle's experience with infertility and IVF, and what inspired her to launch her business, NatalistHow social media is Natalist's biggest growth channel, and her involvement in the content they shareHow launching Natalist in Target in April during the pandemic, helped her shift her core messagingWhy the best investment she has made is the culture of her businessExperiencing a 500% growth during a pandemic while also prioritizing work/life balance, and tips on how to achieve itHalle's best advice to Entreprenistas looking to raise venture capital, from timing to what she looks for in a cold introAnd finally, Halle's best time management skills that started in middle school

    Halle Tecco is the CEO and Founder of Natalist, a company proudly ‘funded, founded, and led by moms' specializing in fertility and pregnancy products. After graduating with a BS in Finance, she moved to Silicon Valley and in 2010 was a Business Development Manager for Apple, developing health and medical apps. The same year she also founded Rock Health, the first venture fund dedicated to digital health and since 2007 has angel invested in over 100 companies. Halle has an MBA from Harvard Business School and an MPH from John Hopkins Bloomsberg School of Public Health. She has featured in many media publications, with SF Chronicle listing her amongst ‘The Most Powerful Women in Technology' and charting in Forbes ‘30 under 30'.   Today Halle joins us to share her unique journey from Finance graduate in Cleveland Ohio to Angel investor and CEO with a huge portfolio of companies to her name. She discusses her time at Harvard Business School and what she learned both from the MBA course and the people she met through it. Halle reveals the pivotal moment a family crisis made her reassess her work life balance and approach to office hours, and why she will never go back to those ‘workaholic' days. She also shares her personal story of fertility and IVF experience, and how this difficult period became the inspiration for Natalist, an empathetic brand for women with a goal to create better women's health products.   “You're the first but don't be the last.” - Halle Tecco     This week on SocialFly's Entreprenista Podcast:   Why you should be a generalist AND specialist entrepreneur Halle's essential tips for venture capitalists Why you should only work with investors who believe in you How to make your cold email stand out from the others Why you should always seek feedback from your investors Why a healthy workplace requires boundaries   Our Favorite Quotes:   “As soon as you start to think of women, and other women as on your side and people that you want to help, that comes back to you in the world.” - Halle Tecco “Don't go into an industry or new opportunity with the combative competitive mindset, but rather with the mindset of a rising tide lifts all boats, and what I can do to help others.” - Halle Tecco “You have to work at it. You really have to set boundaries and stick to them.” - Halle Tecco   Resources Mentioned:   Kindbody - Fertility & Wellness     Connect with Halle Tecco:   Natalist Website Natalist on Instagram Natalist on LinkedIn Natalist on Twitter Rock Health Website Halle Tecco on Instagram Halle Tecco on LinkedIn Halle Tecco on Facebook Halle Tecco on Twitter     Say “Hello!” To DigiCards™   Are you ready to take your virtual team meetings to the next level? Are you tired of yelling “You're on mute!” at your computer screen and letting the important points you were trying to make get lost?   If you're tired of leading unproductive, distraction-filled team meetings, then it's time for you to say “Hello!” to DigiCards. Each pack of virtual meeting cards include 20 color-coded professional cards designed to streamline your meeting communications while allowing each meeting to create an opportunity for collaboration and fun.   Say “Goodbye!” to waving your arms, being ignored, and frantically typing in the chat.   Start your next virtual meeting with DigiCards - the virtual meeting cards for entreprenistas.   To grab your deck of DigiCards and bring fun, engagement, and collaboration back into your team meetings, visit www.hellodigicards.com. Use the coupon code: Entreprenista10 to receive 10% off your first order.     Become An Entreprenista!   Thanks for tuning into this week's episode of The Entreprenista Podcast - the most fun business meeting for female founders, by female founders. If you enjoyed this episode, please subscribe to the show and leave a review wherever you get your podcasts.   Apple Podcasts | TuneIn | Spotify | Stitcher | iHeartRadio | GooglePlay   Be sure to share your favorite episodes across social media to help us reach more amazing female founders, like you.   Don't forget to follow us on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and LinkedIn and for more exclusive content, tips, and insight, join the Entreprenistas Facebook group and visit the SocialFly website.    

Today, we talk with Leslie Schrock (leslieschrock.com), entrepreneur, investor, and author of Bumpin': The Modern Guide to Pregnancy (bumpin.com), which she wrote in real time when she was pregnant, and is a real and honest look at the birth process from the decision to conceive through birth and postpartum. We talk about her efforts growing Rock Health (https://rockhealth.com), a startup accelerator of companies that improve the quality, safety, and accessibility of our healthcare system. She gives examples of companies that provide telehealth care specifically for women, such as Maven (https://www.mavenclinic.com) and Origin (https://www.theoriginway.com). We talk about the importance of investing in women's health, as well as the history behind the underrepresentation of women in clinical trials. Leslie talks about how the defects and tragedy caused by thalidomide essentially banned women from clinical trials in the U.S. for a long time, and how women are still suffering the effects from that. We talk about the growth of women's health, and we predict it will only continue to grow into the future. We discuss the importance of education in health and anatomy, and how especially investing in women's health education can influence families and society at large to take better care of their bodies. Leslie talks more about her birth experience, including her preparation and recovery. We focus on the importance of realizing that you can't control birth, and how you shouldn't let a negative birth experience define yourself as a parent. Leslie then talks about the success of her book, Bumpin', as well as her plans for a future book that takes a more comprehensive look at women's health. We discuss the importance of both women and men committing to learning about fertility.  0:52 Writing Bumpin' and Growing Rock Health; Telehealth  9:16 Investing in Women's Health and Health Education  30:16 Lessons Leslie Learned From Her Birth Experience 38:38 Changing the Conversation About Women's Health and Fertility "It took 3 pregnancies and 16 months to get my son here…I had a miscarriage around 6 weeks. The second pregnancy we found out wasn't viable due to a chromosomal abnormality, and even though the pregnancy was going to end on its own in a matter of weeks, we still had to technically terminate it.” 1:37

Malay Gandhi, Senior VP, Business Operations, Evidation Health Malay is an active angel investor in early stage, health-focused startups and advises a number of leading health tech companies. Most recently, Malay served as the SVP of Business Operations at Evidation Health, and prior was an EIR at Greylock Partners and led Rock Health as its CEO and Managing Director. As an investor, Malay originated early stage investments in Benchling, Collective Health, Evidation, Honor, Solv, Stride Health, and Virta amongst others. His research and work in health tech have been cited in the The New York Times, Financial Times, CNBC, NPR, Bloomberg, USA Today, Inc., BuzzFeed, and The Information.

Evidation Health and Omada Health, two of Rock Health's portfolio companies, are trailblazers in their respective domains in digital health. Both have heritage as evidence-driven and evidence-generation platforms, and together they're designing the gold standard of decentralized clinical trials. As COVID-19 pushes the industry to gather novel clinical data digitally, Evidation Executive Director of Digital Health Outcomes Dr. Jessie Juusola and Omada Senior Director of Clinical Research & Policy Dr. Cynthia Castro Sweet sat down with Rock Health CEO & Managing Director Bill Evans to share how they're bringing value to the future of clinical trials by meeting people where they are.

How can healthcare stakeholders reach and sustainably engage patients with innovative, 21st-century technology? Hear from three leaders—HealthTech4Medicaid Executive Director Adimika Arthur, and Rock Health portfolio company founders, Podimetrics CEO Jon Bloom and Arine CEO Yoona Kim—to discuss the lessons they've learned in building solutions for high risk, high-cost populations. From diabetic veterans to Medicaid enrollees, they'll share tactical tips in leveraging technology to lower the barriers to care for patients who need it most. Join the conversation to hear how they've found success in scaling these solutions with a digital-first, patient-centric mindset.