Everly Health founder and CEO Julia Cheek is taking steps to revolutionize healthcare by helping patients gain access to all kinds of medical testing and in doing so allowing providers to have the data they need to give the best care possible. Darrell and Jordan first met Julia at TechCrunch Disrupt in 2016 when she was a self-proclaimed “fish out of water”. On today’s episode, she talks about how she went from being a fresh first-time founder to a CEO and competent leader who has strategically acquired companies to create a holistic and vertically integrated home-testing company. Don’t miss this week’s TechCrunch Live City Spotlight on Austin, Texas. RSVP: https://hopin.com/events/city-spotlight-austin
Everly Health founder and CEO Julia Cheek is taking steps to revolutionize healthcare by helping patients gain access to all kinds of medical testing and in doing so allowing providers to have the data they need to give the best care possible. Darrell and Jordan first met Julia at TechCrunch Disrupt in 2016 when she was a self-proclaimed “fish out of water”. On today’s episode, she talks about how she went from being a fresh first-time founder to a CEO and competent leader who has strategically acquired companies to create a holistic and vertically integrated home-testing company.
Don’t miss this week’s TechCrunch Live City Spotlight on Austin, Texas. RSVP: https://hopin.com/events/city-spotlight-austin
Take our listener survey and let us know a bit about yourself and what you think of FOUND.
Connect with us:
Darrell Etherington 0:01
I am looking to found I'm Darrell Etherington, your host for TechCrunch this podcast all about startups and the founders who create them and the stories behind the startups. I'm here with the certified board certified doctor to my also poor certified lab technician. Neither of these things are true,
Jordan Crook 0:21
but I'm suddenly in a lot of student debt. keywords that you just said, I'm Jordan, not a doctor. I was like, wait really educated? Yeah.
Darrell Etherington 0:30
I mean, like we action for these claims. So nevermind. Yeah, there. There's reason that we started that way. Our guests this week is the reason and we will get to our guests in a minute. But first I want to talk about something we have coming up this very week when you're listening to this. This is coming out on Monday and Wednesday, this coming Wednesday, April sixth, we have the Austin City Spotlight at TechCrunch. That includes a TechCrunch live for that's a virtual event episode focused on Austin startups and investors, you can register to get an invite to hop in and it's a free event to attend. And we have this virtual platform hop in and then you can ask that speaker's questions. You can network with other attendees, a lot of folks from the Austin ecosystem will be in there, then you can also talk to us. I mean, me Jordan will probably be in there from time to time. Hang on Marius. Yeah. TechCrunch. Around. Yeah, yeah.
Jordan Crook 1:29
I mean, we've got a panel with Zebra and Silverton partners, which is pretty cool. And essentially, if you're like a founder or in the early stage tech ecosystem in Austin, it's one of those can't miss things. It's just to be a big collection of folks there. And there's a pitch off from Austin based early stage startups so you can hear them pitch, find out what's cool and new in that area and hear investor feedback on those pitches. So should be pretty cool.
Darrell Etherington 1:54
Yes, and related. Today, we have a very special episode because we spoke to Julia cheek from Everly health, which is based in Austin. It's a home and lab medical testing company. And it's also a telehealth company. They cover a lot of bases more all the time. They started as Everly Well, which was a company that debuted at disrupts 2016 in San Francisco, then they expand it, they acquired a bunch of companies and change their name last year and cover way more. So they started just focused on at home consumer testing. They've expanded into the lab space, and they handle lab diagnostics for a number of different companies now just growing like crazy. I think Julia said they're up to 600 people. So yeah, it's really exciting to talk to someone who is captaining this kind of rocket ship. Also great to talk to Julia because she is a TechCrunch battlefield alumni, which we always love to do, but she's there 2016 TechCrunch Disrupt San Francisco. She has fond memories of it of meeting Jordan specifically. I don't think she remembers me when I remember you. Yeah, yeah. Thank you. Thanks. It's always good to be remembered by the person who I co host this weekly podcast. Yeah.
Jordan Crook 3:12
A person who knows you best. But no, I think it was cool. She was at Disrupt. And like, it's always super cool. This year. The companies that kind of like launched on our stage grow so much. I mean, it's just like seeing a little sapling turned into a mighty oak.
Darrell Etherington 3:28
Yes. Yeah, for sure. And Julia explains better than we ever could, why she was the person to steward that company through its very earliest days to where it is now and to the future. So enjoy.
Hello, Julia. Thanks for joining us.
Julia Cheek 3:50
Hi, Darryl. Thanks for having me.
Darrell Etherington 3:51
I'm excited. Yes. Yeah. Back on TechCrunch. spoken before and I'm just looking at right now and one of my browser windows the disrupt SF 2016 posts about Everly Well, yeah, the health of that time, a photo that I think I took, which those are always awkward to take because people are like, What do you want a photo of like I have a lot of people are like I have a computer screen. You want a photo of my computer screen. But you you leave out a box, which was cool.
Julia Cheek 4:19
I remember I remember the actual photo position. And you know what, I remember Jordan as well. That was I mean, I was like a total fish out of water and this TechCrunch battlefield just dropped. I applied after the deadline. Didn't think there was any chance we'd get and it was really honestly, life changing for me in the business. I joined I think you were the MC number that year a year. Yeah. It was 2016 it was 2016.
Jordan Crook 4:42
Cisco. Yes. Yeah. Oh man. I probably had like short hair and stuff. I was probably like a child. It was
Julia Cheek 4:48
really really fun though. It was an incredible experience. For me. It actually was the feeder for me into Shark Tank of all things and so there's a lot there. Obviously we can unpack later but was truly transformed. But for us at our stage,
Darrell Etherington 5:01
so that's why I bring it up. We like to start this off with a lot of praise for just the brand. Well, me and Georgia do because then it goes downhill from everything you've accomplished, and they dwarf our accomplishments.
Julia Cheek 5:17
It's like a really like, core formation memory of me as a founder. So I love talking about it.
Darrell Etherington 5:24
That's awesome. But let's actually start with what I mentioned briefly, when you started, then it was Everly? Well, yeah. And you're on here now as CEO of Everly health, which is quite a different company, right. I mean, that's often the way that things happen. But can you talk to us a bit about where you started? And then compare that I guess a bit to where you are now?
Julia Cheek 5:42
Yeah, absolutely. It's actually been just a year I think even this week that we became really health. And certainly when I started the business back in 2015, about a year before I appeared at TechCrunch, disrupt, I started this based on a problem that I had, which I think you hear from many founders, this was me as a 30 year old woman in a corporate job with good health insurance, having an unexplainable health problem, and going from doctor to doctor to try to solve it. And all the while racking up a whole host of bills that I didn't even realize I was incurring, because I was on at the time, what was somewhat of a burgeoning newfangled High Deductible Health Plan. Of course, that's now standard and normal. You know, seven years later, going through this process. You know, I didn't come from a healthcare background, I was really a person in the system going through this diagnostic experience, I realized all of these doctors were uncoordinated. They all had their own specialties. And they were all ordering a bunch of tests, I never actually got those results. In most cases, I got a voicemail or a call saying, hey, from the nursing, hey, everything looks normal, when I was able to get the access to those results and compile them many times I might have been clinically normal, but very borderline are not normal for my age, and are trending differently than I hadn't had passed. And then of course, the experience was then topped off with not only no real diagnosis, but also you know, six months later, these bills that were either towards my deductible are completely out of network or any number of categorizations, that I didn't really care what they were, except that I had to pay for them. And so I thought about the fact and you know, we can talk about if I knew I wanted to just jump into an industry that I no experience in as a solo founder. But I knew like this was a problem that I realized very quickly, it was my problem. But it was a problem that everyone probably had in lab testing. And specifically, I was focused at the time on our market that I knew, I mean, it was what I knew, which was women from 25 to 45, oftentimes not taken seriously in the healthcare system, needing answers to things and often being hit with significantly higher bills as they go through the system to try to get home. And I realized lab testing had been really not innovated on in terms of care delivery. And so it seemed like something that was kind of not sexy, when you talked about digital health at the time. And yet something I saw these clear trends that were really both in favor of that industry needing transformation, but also something that everybody needed. It was like going to the DMV how to do it. Nobody liked it. And so that was how I got started then, and then you know, now we're much bigger.
Jordan Crook 8:12
It's felt like I mean, I've set for ever, I feel like that makes so much sense. You know what modern fertility does when you send them your tests, and they're like, this is FSH, like FSH means this and here's like, I'm handing it to you, like your second grader, and like, you want this number or this number, but not this number. You know, it's like very kid gloves for people, which like, isn't really kid gloves. It's just like the average human who doesn't have a medical degree. But right. I mean, I remember in my last physical getting my results back and they like, email them to me, the doctor was like, oh, cholesterol is a little bit high, but that's normal for your family. Okay, I'll talk to you later. And I there's like 45 numbers on here. And some of them are not within the normal range. So like, that's okay. Because of some combination of them, like it loosely defined. Okay.
Unknown Speaker 8:59
Yeah, it's like,
Jordan Crook 9:01
can we? And obviously, like, I don't think doctors have the time, right. Like, unfortunately, to like, sit and be like, let me teach you about all these different things that happen in your body to make the function properly. Why this is normal and not normal. But like, it feels like there's an important need there. Right? Like, just be like, Oh, you kind of understand them have some bit of control over your health.
Julia Cheek 9:24
And it's an interesting model that we've now seen a lot of opportunity with physicians because in the early days, this was not normalized, right? Even though the science had been around that used by health plans for decades, providers were like, wait a minute, I only know how to look at my two labs that I work with. But if you think about what was happening at the time, people were bringing physicians there 23andme results that content Jordan is actually the most sophisticated part of delivering this model is making it understandable and yet usable for people, whether it's modern fertility or 23andme. That was coming the originators of some of this in the consumer realm. And so there was this movement to say, okay, how can we actually help doctors? If they know they're going to have to run these tests? How do you help them get the data before the patient comes in to actually make the appointment a lot more effective, instead of having to do this cursory follow up, I think that is something that took a long time to catch on. But as we come into kind of current moment is certainly something that is a lot of benefit both for clinicians and for the patients, because this was kind of out there for a long time is this bolt on to what was the standard system. And I think like the normalization of it with physicians is going to be something that actually then ends up delivering the full value of why people are getting
Jordan Crook 10:39
tested and getting tests before you go into the doctor to write like, yeah, like, my partner is a doctor and can blame essentially ask a doctor to script her lab tests. And then she schedules her doctor appointment, right? Yeah. Like, it's genius when you think about it, but like, they don't do it that way. And then they call you and they're like, I have two seconds. And I just want you to know, like, you either have to go to 25 people or you're fine. And like, that's all you get. And then when you have to go to a new doctor, you're like, I don't care. Yeah, call her she might know. But she might not remember, you know, like, I don't know. Yeah, yeah. It's a max man. Canada.
Darrell Etherington 11:21
No, no, that's it. I was gonna say, because, you know, normally I talk about how great healthcare is here. But I just got my physical is weird, because it was like, it's still pandemic practices at my doctor's office. So she was like, Alright, we just do virtual physicals unless, you know, whatever, which went, she was like, How are you feeling? And I was like,
Jordan Crook 11:36
that's great. Nothing.
Darrell Etherington 11:40
And then she said, I'm gonna email you a lab test request and go to any, you know, LabCorp, or whatever it's called up here, like nearby and just get it filled out, and they'll send it back to me, and then I'll follow up or not, depending on what the results are, right? Like, ah, I haven't done it, because I've played it. But the this is like a question I had on the other side that maybe shows too much about me. But is there a consumer hurdle you have to get over where it's like, I would rather not know that I actually kind of like when the when the doctor just says like, you're okay, and then you're like, sweet, great. That's all I needed to know, I don't want to think about it. I don't
Jordan Crook 12:15
even want to go to the doctor for them to say that I don't risk it for the biscuit. You know what I mean? Like, I'd rather just not go and just be like, I'm okay,
Darrell Etherington 12:22
I'm sure I'm okay. Just roll those days, probably. But I think
Julia Cheek 12:27
like this gets at the core of why we haven't been able to change behavior and healthcare, right, which is ultimately people want a quick fix, they want a prescription, they want a solution where people don't want to engage. So I do think it's important that a little bit of why we created a different model of you know, we do cholesterol testing, we do diabetes testing, we do condition management, in addition to wellness and vitamin testing. But a lot of the reason for that is because we don't want this to be a nice to have ancillary need, we want it to actually solve core affordability and healthcare problems. And I think that I'm not going to sit here and claim Darryl, that we are going to be the be all end all and shifting millions of people's of behavior change that need to be managing this condition, it will take us and others Yeah, and integrate it to kind of support and engaging structure to change population health overall, and really affect a lot of these conditions. But I think what we can do is oftentimes the challenge doctors have, once people get to the doctor is getting them to take the test to get the data that shows them, they need to make a change. And that is something we are very, very good at. And so I think that that is really powerful. And you know, we do a lot of cancer screening tests, and people will get abnormal results. And it motivates them at higher rates to actually go and get the confirmatory diagnosis. And so that I think there's no silver bullet, there's nothing to say like just a test itself is going to solve the problem. But I do think it is one lever that can make a meaningful difference if you have the data. But certainly some people don't want to know if people are stopping testing now for COVID. Because they don't want to know, right,
Unknown Speaker 13:57
right. Oh, that's right. I think
Jordan Crook 14:00
like being armed with information makes such a difference. Right? And I feel like so often, like you're talking about cancer screenings, right? Like I went in and got a physical and had a breast exam, or they were like, Oh, we feel something a little weird. And I was like, it doesn't feel weird to me. Because like I know, and it's like normal or whatever. And she's like, No, no, it feels weird to me. This is her first time ever examining me. So go get a sonogram, but they're probably gonna make you do a mammogram. And like, essentially, when I went to my gynecologist who does know, I was like, You didn't need to do any of that, like I know, and you're fine. She was like, what will happen with those cancer screenings is they will send you all the way through, they're not going to say like, Oh, we didn't find something unless they look in all the ways, right. So like, if they don't see something on a sonogram, they're like, let's bump this up. And if they don't find something on the mammogram, they're like, let's bump this up and they will constantly bump up until they're absolutely sure because they never want to say we didn't find anything, even if the chances are this miniscule. Now, if I'm told that before I go through that process, I like the chances are really, really, really really well, but it would be smart. You can do it, like, go do it. Here's how all these things were probably more motivation for me to be like, Okay, fine. But I did the sonogram. They didn't find anything that ordered the mammogram. And I was like, No, I'm too stressed about this. I don't have any understanding until I went and saw my gynecologist later and had her sit down and explain everything to me that like, this is why they keep escalating. All I'm hearing is like, a radiologist has been like, you need a mammogram, that's all I hear. Right? Not like we didn't find anything, but we did sign
Darrell Etherington 15:27
something we're concerned or whatever, right?
Jordan Crook 15:30
Yes, exactly. And so like, I think, like, just anything that helps you understand, hey, this might be a little off. But like, it doesn't mean you're gonna die, either. Right? There's really easy ways to fix this. And that the other was really it starts with
Julia Cheek 15:44
the egg. We read that? I haven't, I haven't. So like
Jordan Crook 15:49
a fertility book. And she's just kind of talking about all the reasons why women like struggle to get pregnant, particularly like folks with low ovarian reserve and like, for egg quality and all these things. And the thing that was so uplifting about is it super informational, you get a lot of science. And it just also like, if this is the issue, here's all the data that shows how you can solve that issue. It's like almost like nothing is insurmountable, like obviously, there outliers there. But it gives you a like positive outlook. And there are a few things in health course there are things that have a terrible outlook, and you can't do anything about them. And they exist. But like most things don't. Right? Like am I wrong to think that like the vast majority of things actually do have a solution. So if you're in pain, or there's
Julia Cheek 16:30
manage management, exactly, yeah.
Jordan Crook 16:33
So like just the information piece. It's like there's so little information passed from professionals or lab results, or HCPs, or whatever, to patient. And there's such a disconnect, that it's like hard to be invested in at all plus the cost plus the time and energy plus the wait times plus the, you know, it's like, why would anybody try? Why would I try? You know,
Julia Cheek 16:55
and, and there's so much around the reversal like exactly what you're talking about with the sonogram to the mammogram process. For example, like we have a high risk HPV test, high risk HPV screening is responsible for the vast majority of cervical cancer. So most women have HPV, most people have HPV, if you do not have one of these high risk strains, it is likely to be inconsequential. In terms of women developing cervical cancer, you need to know if you have one of these, I think it's four strains, that is what you need to know. And then you need to know if you need to then therefore have increased pap smears. And if you do, and if you have this, and you know this information, cervical cancer is likely curable, if caught early, if caught late, it is incurable. And so it is a very drastic set of outcomes. And yet, we just generally give women pap smears every other year. And we don't think about how much more effective we could be with some of these basic solutions that are proven and again, getting ahead of it with getting the information and then you would actually have information that helps you understand your relative and real risk level, right of these kinds of things. And so I think that there's just so much more that exists today, not even talking about innovation in what we have to build in the future that could be better connected in terms of getting people information to actually give them the right next steps
Darrell Etherington 18:14
now is the cause because it sounds like there's a few cars, right? It seems like institutional inertia is a big cause. But it also sounds like and just my firsthand experience from being in care facilities, like people are just always on their back feet, right. Like everyone's always reacting. And they're inundated and overwhelmed on the healthcare practitioner side and professional side. So is that it's almost like you've never have time, because everything you are doing all the time is essentially triage. And the few minutes you have to rest It's like I can't really think about how to do this better. I'm too busy just trying to recover for the next round of triage. What are the major contributing factors? I know incentive structures are also like how are you going about changing the fundamentals? And again, like you said, No one company can solve everything. But what are the steps that I guess I really is taking generally to try to counteract?
Julia Cheek 18:59
Yeah, I mean, exactly what you're saying, Darrell, I mean, we you can read countless articles for years around prior to the pandemic, right around physician time, time with patients, document management, triaging all these things. And then you get these results that are genericized from your doctor, because all they're trying to do is make sure you don't have some life altering condition. If you're relatively within the bounds, you're not their priority, somewhat understandably, right, these physicians have specialties they're there to diagnose specific conditions. That's really what they're looking for. But when you think about what this amounts to now, especially with the significant health care, worker labor shortage of all different specialties and qualifications, the significant burnout and mental health issues, it's obviously even more on fire than it was and I think there are quite a few different types of diagnostic management and prevention management that can be self administered or done in the home and at the right cadence. So for us specifically, we our top product is our colon cancer screening. test that is offered by 35 different health plans at no cost to the members, and millions and millions of Americans have access to it. And it is a test that can detect blood in your stool and then indicate for you if you need to go get a follow up and actually have the diagnostic test done. It keeps you out of the doctor's office, it prevents you from having to have that colonoscopy, which is awful, yeah, unless you have that abnormal result annually. And it's all self administered and digitally enabled, right, and it's sent back into a lab. But again, you're able to still do that in concert with your provider, and yet you're taking actionability on it. And we have that with a number of tests. And you will see that I think evolve in terms of remote monitoring, even things like taking your weight, measuring your waist, taking your blood pressure, like a lot of these vitals that are so essential to prevention and to condition management, that people are going into facilities now and taking up provider time to do Yeah, now that has to be self empowered. But we've already seen over the last two years total behavior change in the home, right? So if we're able to help people continue that path and see how much more accessible these choices are in the home with some of these new technologies coming out, I think it can really be a major burden reduction, and see improved care and outcomes for practitioners.
Darrell Etherington 21:12
Yeah, they go hand in hand, right? Like, the more that you empower people to take care of their own health, the less the burden on the actual health care professionals,
Jordan Crook 21:20
when even just like having access to right, as a woman, you go to like several different doctors a year, right? And men probably do too, right for a bunch of different things. I don't know, I don't have that in my life other than their own. Right? You don't
Darrell Etherington 21:33
until you reach a certain age, after a certain age, you then start to but for men for most of their lives, urologist or something GP and you're good. I mean, you know, leaving out sort of toddlers or whatever.
Jordan Crook 21:45
Yeah, but like you also I mean, you do have the optometrist, right. And like, there might be like a little sparkle in your eye that like means something weird. And it would probably be useful for your GP to know, particularly if a weird testing or like, your dentist to write like dental care is like actually really important to your overall health robot, right? So like those two people never taught, it's like up to the patient to be like, hey, my dentist said like, there's one time and I don't know, like you did something and and hurt people don't. I'm not saying that people are stupid. But I think it's really hard to keep track of all that stuff, especially if it's not like really properly organized. Which leads me to a question, Julia, I feel like you have all of this information. That's like some of the hardest stuff, right? These lab test results are like some of the hardest stuff for like, a general patient to keep track of, but like you're giving to them, they're like, Okay, I have it. I have this now and can do something with it. Is there plans to build into the backend of like all of these other folks, so that, I mean, like the reason I asked this group, my puppy went to bond that you know, bond, but I don't, it's really cool. I mean, it's like not the coolest thing in the world. But essentially, everything gets on to an app, like everything that's ever happened every single time I've taken them to the vet, like I have access to this for MediCal. If I have to go do anything, there's an emergency like habit like this is what he has, this is what he's been checked for, blah, blah, I don't have to keep track of it. Because it's all there automatically goes, like there should be something like that for people, right? Like I have my app, that's like, yeah, they said it was long
Darrell Etherington 23:14
and bloody.
Julia Cheek 23:16
So first of all, just to kind of run you through the strategy of how I felt we had to do this to actually stay alive. As a company we built outside of the EMR system we built outside of selling into providers selling into insurance, we leveraged physicians, right, but we knew that this had to be built adjacent because it would get crushed if trying to scale and build in the vertical. Now, of course, that shifted and become overlapping. During the pandemic. However, we always said, Look, you pay one price up front, we couldn't even do that, if we had built into health plans to start, like, Hey, we're gonna tell you the price you pay, and you will never pay anything, again, without deciding to pay that by another service. Right? I mean, not that radical and yet totally novel. And then building into health records, was a totally closed off system and like really barely interconnected at the time. And now, a lot of it is available through you know, your health plan if you're a health plan member. But I actually think I don't know that the problem is ever going to get solved. Or I hate to say that I think what you're seeing like, look at Gen Z, they're using healthcare in a totally different way than any other prior generation. I think it's because they're creators. They're oftentimes gig economy, and we're self employed, right? And I think when you look at what they're doing, they're using insurance as catastrophic. And they're having it for like those particular situations. And they're building this ecosystem of self selected services for whatever their particular needs are. Yeah, I wouldn't actually say it's that different than what we've all scrambled through over the last decade or two, but I think they have better access to new digital tools to be able to build that out themselves. And insurance is kind of forcing them in some ways to do that. Right. We're looking at all the shift in consumer Out of pocket spending, obviously, the majority on high deductible plans, all of which just means you pay for a large amount of your services. So I wish I was more optimistic on that interconnected one medical record situation. But I think the average person has over 30 different medical files by the time they're like in their mid 30s, many of which are not digitized. And, you know, we feel really proud of the data we have. And we are looking at how do we integrate connected devices? How do we help people be able to bring more into the fold to include whatever medical records they want to disclose to us for their own personalized care? And then for telehealth offerings, but it's not quite as broad as kind of that example of bond?
Jordan Crook 25:37
Yeah. Would you pay for that, though? Like if I mean, I would love to see insurance providers or something? Because like, here's what I'm thinking, like, if it's all in your insurance plan, right? Like, it's all in my little file from insurance, and you build a service that was adjacent to that, I was like, hey, insurance provider, give me that. And I'll make it pretty. And I'll actually explain what it means. And I'll put it on an app for you. I will pay for
Darrell Etherington 26:00
that. I think it's just it's been so long, but I remember covering HR like when it was first taking its baby steps. And like, there was so much hope and optimism around it, which was just ground down into nothing over the course of however many years, it's, I'd have to agree with Julia, like it just is not the incentives are not there. The counter incentives are too great.
Jordan Crook 26:22
Why would they want to keep them separate, though? What are the counter incentives? Why don't I understand those?
Julia Cheek 26:27
I think it's because people's tenure with any one provider insurance is too low. So the average I think lifespan is why are needed, needed, but who is going to do it. So there's no advantage to the physician or to the insurer to having a portability. And there's actually no advantage to the insurer in solving a lot of the long term cost of care problems, either unless it's a Medicare, because they don't expect the person to be with them after what is it 18 months or so maybe 24?
Darrell Etherington 26:56
Yeah, it's the duration of your employment, right and which is shorter, a
Julia Cheek 27:01
bigger problem around the American healthcare system really being employer supported. And so then it's tied to jobs. So whole, this is why I tried to stay focused, because there's so much right
Jordan Crook 27:16
out here trying to dream big, 631
Darrell Etherington 27:20
place I've seen hope there is like pressure from this sucks, too, because I don't necessarily want the pressure to come from them. But like entities like Apple, who are so monolithic, and they're like, hey, look, we want everybody to use this system. And we're apple, and so you kind of have to and then companies are like I guess we have to because you're Apple, right? But it's still not enough to get everybody onto the court. And it's just not, it's not gonna happen. I think to Julie's point. It's like all about individual user management, and then the user tools, making this stuff shareable in a way that is easily consumable by any system. Apple Health is a good example of that. Because the way they output stuff for physicians, it's very, you know, safe, and I think they adhere to some standard. And that's why it has bumped now, but I forget what it is. But like, that's how I manage my health now, although it doesn't go anywhere. And I just keep it on my phone and look at it. Yeah, I mean, I have an earring. I've got like, Apple Watch. I've got all kinds of this. Yeah, you know, and I put the stuff
Jordan Crook 28:19
out, don't take my lab test, I stood up twice.
Darrell Etherington 28:23
Just go in there too loud. Just go that when I eventually get around to taking them, they'll go in there.
Jordan Crook 28:28
That's cool. How do I get my last in my Apple Health? We'll have to use Abberley?
Darrell Etherington 28:32
No, I think you can do that. Can some system support that. But you can also manually enter a lot of stuff I'm learning.
Jordan Crook 28:38
I'm still trying to stay optimistic. I will tell you, you should do it. I
Julia Cheek 28:42
am optimistic. For what it's worth. I think the potentially only silver lining obviously out of the pandemic is that there has been changes that I didn't even think were possible and specific testing, there's been so much funding going into new testing r&d that I think will make a huge impact on people's lives in the near term, like next five years. So I am very optimistic on that front. And I think if there was an opportunity to break a lot of this down, I think it's now Yeah,
Darrell Etherington 29:07
cuz none of that move for forever. It didn't change. It's looked the same for forever, right? It looked like kind of like minded except, instead of an email of the form, I would get a fax and I would have to return it by fax or so it was absurd, right?
Jordan Crook 29:21
Exactly. Yeah. Do you think that there's going to be a lot of consolidation in the health tech space, like,
Julia Cheek 29:28
significant? You're, you're young. You started out asking me about Everly health. We did our own our own suite of multiple companies that we bought, which has been really, really fun. But yes, I think more broadly, right now for a number of reasons. There is an over proliferation of telehealth platforms. There is an over proliferation of COVID specific testing companies that were started already post March 2020. There's an over proliferation of what I would call home health care services type businesses. It is not that I don't believe in the trend. have consumer enabled telehealth prescription, you know all of these digital tools and home health care. But I think you're seeing the pendulum having swung a little too far. And some of these companies will make it some will be bought up. But I think you'll see that development, the public markets for digital health are under tremendous pressure and multiples have compressed substantially, that pendulum has swung too far. One way, it'll come back to the middle at some point, but we probably won't see the valuations that we saw for the last three years or so in the public markets. And then more broadly, I think, like, actually, strategically, which is what we did, you'll see services that were sort of verticalized very much becoming overlapping and having to offer more full suite services in order to really deliver a patient experience. And so you saw United announced a huge home health care acquisition, just today, you've seen a number of acquisitions in the digital health space itself, or mergers. We just had 30, Madison, a nurse, there are several others like that. I think the trend will continue probably for the next couple of years. Yeah.
Darrell Etherington 30:59
Do you want to explain a bit more about yours just because I want to hear because the timing was like September 2021. Was it the end of pandemic? The fake end of pandemic? One? I don't remember when things happen anymore. Yeah, no, I know. But I mean, that one when we were all like, Oh, it's over now. And yeah.
Jordan Crook 31:18
I think September was another way, I think the end of the end of the row and was like in the middle of the summer. Right? Like may but how much of it was
Darrell Etherington 31:26
great. That's right. It was the summer everybody thought like, this is the time like the summers gonna rock. But what was like, Was this on your radar before that, I guess? Or was it something that you were like, Oh, well, this the situation drives up the timeline, right. But we always wanted to do something this or
Julia Cheek 31:40
that. So we acquired two companies in March of 2021. That vertically integrated a number of our partner capabilities. So we bought a home access health in Chicago, which had like 35 health plan contracts, a cap accredited lab significant at home r&d on test assays in a manufacturing facility, but they were not digitized at all. They were a 20 year old business had had these health plans. And we're delivering these home health testing services forever. And we separately actually out of TechCrunch and shark tank had been developing the same solution, but in a digitally engaged manner for Humana for several years. And so it was really an opportunity to bring that on and expand that side of our services. And then with Pw and health. This was really the engine and foundation that powered so much of consumer initiated testing in the country. We had been partnered with them for six years since inception. And so I had for years been speaking with our investors and you know, occasionally with PWM CEO who's now on our board about would it ever make sense for us to combine? There were a few reasons why we hadn't done it before. One the structures of the company didn't make sense. We were high growth and venture backed, they were certainly growing but profitable and PE backed very different models. The other piece was more strategic, which was they were building up a client base that previous to the pandemic I think, would have seen us as competitive. And while we really didn't have an impact on their businesses, it was essential to me that when we made this happen, that we were clear that we wanted to be actually the enabler of these consumer platforms and bring our own consumer expertise to help many companies succeed. It is not helpful if Everly health is the only success story in this space. That is not what we want as an industry that is not good for us in our marketing dollars. Right. So our goal is that we can actually help many of these large players that are now making significant investments in similar models actually be successful and partner with them. And so that was a big piece of it was just to really bring that under our wing and be able to say we can offer so many more core capabilities integrated together. And then you know, not to be outdone, we did a third acquisition in October, which was a different model, early stage company of natalist, but huge, incredible organic brand growth, significant retail distribution of their sustainable mom founded mom backed pregnancy, ovulation and fertility essentials, that's a pretty obvious fit. Our women's health category is our fastest growing category. Women are most of our consumers, given the role of women in health care, and we were able to roll out some integrated really great fertility bundle and women's health products very quickly. And we'll be digitizing a lot of that coming forward look different plays for different reasons, some infrastructure, some product innovation, but ultimately, it was the right moment in time. It was the right time to get both of these deals done. I didn't actually go out and raise our series D predicated on necessarily going into this acquisition, but it positioned us to be able to do it really quickly.
Jordan Crook 34:29
How did it feel as a founder who in her own words was a fish out of water and disrupt 2016 to be like, on a Marissa Meyer shopping spree for companies? That feel amazing. Was it stressful or both?
Julia Cheek 34:45
It's such a great question. I don't know if I've properly reflected on it. Not dissimilar from other founders. I'm always focused on like, what's next on what we're currently doing like right What's tomorrow? I gotta go solve these five things. Right. I saw the vision so clearly, and I I saw the consolidation that would happen, I think I felt an urgency for the business. And for our customers around doing it, right, that was really what was driving it. And strategically, it made absolute sense. It was like when we made the decision to go into COVID testing, everyone called it a pivot. And I was so confused by that. And I'd actually correct them. Because I would say, wait a minute, like, we've been around for four years, five years doing at home decentralized testing, so that people don't have to expose other people in public. And we can prescribe off of that. And we can give you your telehealth console and your diagnosis, and you can use it with your employer. And not only is this not a pivot, there has never been a moment more central to our entire mission of why we exist, right. And so I was like, super motivated by this. And it was very similar with these
Darrell Etherington 35:46
is the pivot COVID is the global human health.
Jordan Crook 35:49
Like you'd been there by.
Julia Cheek 35:54
And, you know, I tried to not, it's not helpful, but I would bristle a little bit at this, right, because we were actually very well positioned. And so with these deals, you know, it was something where it just was very, very clear. And I think when you make these decisions, from a strategy and a customer perspective, it actually becomes very easy in those moments. And certainly going from the skill we were out in 2016 to we have over 600 people now, we managed over 40 million tests last year, it's almost hard to fathom. But I have to tell you, I never thought I never really thought about what it would mean to reach scale. As a founder, I just kept one foot in front of the other. And I just kept trying to take the next step that I knew would get us through whatever the next door was. I also think that's a reason why the company has scaled and grown is because I didn't have these sort of markers of like, what would be success? We just sort of kept
Jordan Crook 36:43
going. Yeah, yeah. What was it like integrating like other teams, right? I assume like other founders and leaders of those teams who are like their own boss for a while now. They're like, Hey, what's up? What's that? Like?
Julia Cheek 36:56
Yeah, listen, I mean, anyone who says to you, m&a, and integration is like, super easy. And all they want to do is just integrate new companies every day, obviously, should join the team, because they might be better than we are at at but, but it is necessary, oftentimes, because you can really jump like 10 steps ahead. But it takes a long time to get through integration. I mean, we are one year in and we are just now launching a lot of our integrated solutions. We did one really smart thing, which actually was not my suggestion. But our board member Sanjay who is the CEO of PWM, we actually got a small core group of people at all levels cross functionally from all three companies together. And we did a new mission, vision and values before the deal finished. And so we announced this to the company, the day that we announced the deal. And we were clear that it had pulled from all three legacy organizations. And we talked about examples, we talked about what this would look like we started a vision and values Slack channel where we award people with Amazon Gift certificates for complimenting others for living in our values. And so I think there's things you can do to try to make it easier, but the hard work of just the actual operations of integrating everything, even down to platforms, it takes a while to see that full value. And you just have to be you have to know going in. So even when it's the best deal on paper, and it turns out to be the best deal for the business. It's just hard yards. And a lot of teams may not want to take that on. And it's not necessary for growth. But for us, we really felt like we had to move quickly. And this is the strategic moment, certainly in diagnostics, and certainly in virtual care. And we wanted to stay ahead in the leadership social are
Darrell Etherington 38:32
ours to sort of add on question to that. And also like call back to something you mentioned earlier, you mentioned taking an organization that was a profit focused PE based organization and then a venture back, you know, shoot for the moon, Let's aim for scale. So how did you actually deal with that in practice? Like is that seems like an aspect that would be difficult or as the nature of the organization? What is the new nature of the organization as
Julia Cheek 38:54
well, when we came together both companies Pw and health and then Everly well had experienced, I mean breakneck growth during 2020. and So suffice it to say both were now high growth, whoever they were backed by, right. They were very high growth organizations. PwC had gone from like a team of maybe 30 to over 130, we had gone from 60 people to 250. Right, in a year. So I think that actually helped. I will also say that, like the reality is you're talking about hundreds of people who had been working 24/7 Since March 2020, to support this incredible service that we were offering, and then to announce an acquisition. Nobody is doing less work during integration, right. I think that it was a real ask and acknowledgement of the team to say, this is why we're doing this. It's going to get a little harder before it gets easier. But look at the opportunity ahead. Look at how much bigger our opportunity just became to serve our customers and our clients. And I do believe we're fortunate in that we have This mission to orient people around and to help them see the value that they're delivering in the world. And I think that does make it easier when you're asking people to just continue on this path. Because the moment it's too important to slow down in, but it's a balance and you have to acknowledge it. Yeah, that's
Darrell Etherington 40:14
like Jordan and I have recently gone through a merger of our own. And he's talking about our wedding. Right? Yes. Our civil ceremony? No, I love talking about our acquisitions. My PE firm. Yes, yeah. But like,
Unknown Speaker 40:32
I want a PE firm to buy.
Julia Cheek 40:36
Listen, they've been good. They've been good. You see a VC media technology? Yeah. It's perfect.
Jordan Crook 40:44
No, they have been really nice. I mean, not nice. I haven't spoken to a single one of them. But like they haven't yet. So
Darrell Etherington 40:51
under duress. Yeah. They're really great. But the transition was difficult. My main point, right, like, it's disruptive. Like, there's just too much uncertainty. Right? Yeah. It doesn't matter whether it's net benefit for either party is like, I don't know what is happening, necessarily, right. Yeah. Also, you're not necessarily willing to trust the sources of people telling you that things aren't happening as transparent as people want to be, there's gonna be some doubt people are human, and they're concerned with their futures, right. And they're gonna have to be suspicious of things sometimes. But that seems like a huge challenge. Again, combined with you've got a bunch of human beings who are under this immense amount of stress working harder than they've ever worked in their lives. And you're saying, also, we want to continue working harder than we've ever worked in our lives while you're dealing with this, right? Like, it's a huge, huge challenge, especially as a leader of all this right for you, personally, that's a lot of weight.
Julia Cheek 41:45
And I think you have to build trust, because the number one thing that people are searching for, not only in their jobs, but in life, but certainly at their employer is security and safety, emotional safety, security and transparency. And I'll tell you the one of the ways we built trust really early is we would tell people when we didn't know an answer, right? So it's not Hey, some like, let me direct you over here so I can distract you from your question about benefits about equity. I didn't have an answer for everybody on equity. And I'm sure many times it wasn't the answer they wanted to hear. But it was important to me that we were authentic and transparent. And that whatever commitments we did make, we made them and we followed up on them. Yeah. And I think sometimes telling people, Hey, I don't have an answer, or hey, we're not going to be able to do that is just as important because people just don't want BS, they don't want Bs, and they don't want to anchor on something that's uncertain or to not have a clear answer. And you know, we overhauled all our benefits. But even things when you're doing this in organizations, like bringing everybody on all the same benefits with all the same match and leave and everything else that took until the new year
Jordan Crook 42:49
when like, positions and like what is an associate director versus Yeah,
Julia Cheek 42:55
and it is distracting, and you want to keep people focused on the goal at hand. And yet I understand why it is. And so my kind of not that I didn't expect this, but certainly lesson learned is this is not a one year endeavor, like, oh, we acquired them last year. And so here's all the benefits, right? It may look that way. On paper. Yeah. But as a leader, you're still in this in really making sure that you're listening to the organization really bringing everyone together.
Jordan Crook 43:20
Yeah, that was something I was gonna ask too, because I feel like Darrell and I had a taste of this today, actually, but pretty much all the time, which is the like, people are the hardest part I write like, being a manager, I really do I
Darrell Etherington 43:33
listen to him, if you're listening. Like I mean, that's not in a bad way. Don't try to back figure out when we record it. No, in a
Jordan Crook 43:41
bad way. It's just like, of course, a human is going to be more complicated than solving any problem or looking at any data because they're human, right. And they're like, motivated in different ways. And all of them are different. They all have different focuses, they all have different concerns. They all have different aspirations, and trying to like filter a single message, it's hard for me and we have a team of like 30, and you have 600 people working for you. So like, at a certain point, you have to know that like within my parameters of my value system, and what I think the strategy should be there going to be people that don't agree, and that's fine, right? Buyers, we can accept that point. But then for everyone else, there's still a lot of friction and filtering in terms of what are you actually hearing what I'm saying, and is it landing, right or is it not? And can it be internalized and acted upon? Like that part is hard, I think because everyone's different, and they're hearing different versions, and they're picking out what is important to them and leaving out the stuff that isn't and I'm just curious how you do that.
Julia Cheek 44:39
How you think about that? Yeah, I mean, the consistency, the simplicity, the repetition of the message is so so important and listen, like we're in a hard business. I didn't start this business. Like let me create some SAS platform where it's like set it and forget it and it's auto renewed and all those things. I'm not saying there's not value in that certainly get higher multiples, but for This is a people based company like we have hundreds of physicians and nurses counseling people with positive test results every day, right? We have a built in our fulfillment centers kidding overnight to fulfill timeline orders, and meet deadlines. And we have great technology too. But this is not an easy business. It is fundamentally people based, you have people doing very different roles in this organization, engineers, lab assistants, r&d, right, it couldn't be a more diverse group of people in all respects, I have to deliver that message. But I will tell you, I say very little compared to what my leadership team is actually communicating and driving. My goal is always frankly, to make myself obsolete, it's not to say that obviously the CEO doesn't have an important role to play. But I don't want anything to be too dependent on one person, one message, frankly, on one founder, because I think that actually doesn't speak to the durability of the opportunity. And of the company itself. We focus a lot. I mean, I am in internal comms and external comms constantly. Because I really want to be sure that what we're saying is transparent, it's authentic. And you know, we share more probably than any company of our scale. And in fact, when I can't share something, I will actually say, I actually can't share that with you. But I want you to know why. Yeah, and my belief is, if we can translate this, we have a very smart group of people working at a really health people can actually understand how their role better fits in the company, they can make better decisions, they can raise their hand if they see something wrong, and be empowered to do that. And I think this strategy that many companies have, which is like, share as little as possible, only people at the top, have all the information and like, just tell them the bare minimum, I really want to be a different example. And that requires a lot of mutual trust, trust in us as leaders in the company and knowing that we're telling the truth, and then trust also in the employees, but I'm hopeful that that strategy will kind of be a new model, and something that will drive our success. But it's been a core value, like one of my core values is transparency in my life, I've always operated we actually like was our first core value of the company and price in results in not selling data and what you're getting and what you're not. And like it's just something that I think has been a thread throughout maybe the impact in the mark I've had on how I've built the company, as well. Yeah,
Darrell Etherington 47:15
that's it, it shouldn't be understated how crucial that is the part especially about you know, making yourself are done it right, especially in this particular in like tech industry in general, because it's the opposite approach that I see so many times, a lot of founders, and I'm not going to name names, but like hang on to things long, long after the point where they should like I'm talking well into when the company is a public company. And they're like, this can't survive without me. And I'm going to go out of my way to find ways to make certain that that's the case, right, which is like a weird egotistical sort of self sabotage the AI is in some ways mystifying. But it's always very understandable and human.
Jordan Crook 47:55
But human, but me, you can see how many times that is one like lead to hyper growth and success, which means it's emulated a lot. Right, right, like not necessarily that strategy. But the other strategies they got you to success also happened to be paired with the culture thing. Yeah. They have to like hold as much of it as possible. And so it becomes emulated. Right, like, I can't tell you how many founders, especially around the time that we first met Julia, like, right, in the 2015 2016 era, where I was hearing early stage founders tell me that their inspiration was Steve Jobs, and Travis Kalanick. And like, some of these names were like, oh, you know, like, I wish I mean, Steve Jobs was an innovator and an amazing creator. But like, nobody wanted him to be their boss really, like he wasn't known as like that nice, transparent, fostering your growth kind of guy. You know what I mean? Like he was a win at all costs guy.
Darrell Etherington 48:53
But I like how did you did you set out from the beginning to be intentional about that? Or was it something you had to kind of grow into as a as a founder and a leader?
Julia Cheek 49:02
You know, I think my focus has always been on how successful can I build this company to be? I'm an introvert by nature, I know I do a fair amount of press and media for the business. But like, I'm a very private person, I really, really care about solving this problem, fundamentally. But I will say I'm much more identify with my founder title than I do my CEO title. I view myself as being in whatever role the business needs me to be in to be successful. And right now that's CEO. And that is a decision that is made by a lot of people including me, but I think that it is something for me that I've never understood. And maybe this could just be innate, for me personally, why people glom onto titles. I'm not a title driven person. And in fact, we're very specific about that when we hire on the executive team as well, which is like I mean,
Unknown Speaker 49:57
it's easy not to be picky about Title When you're founder and CEO,
Julia Cheek 50:01
it is. It's a really good point. You're the boss, you didn't have the title. Yeah, yeah. It's something I remember I'll tell this is the comms point. One time I introduced myself on an all hands is the founder. And I just said, founder, I didn't intentionally leave off CEO. And I figured out very quickly, I can't make those mistakes anymore. Because then immediately people thought that like, they were like, yeah, no, no, it's just I just said, founder. So you know, you do have to, like, be very buttoned up about these things and look at I'm running now a big company. But I will say like, my authenticity around this, I think really comes like, I want to be successful in the sense that I do want the company to win and be a generational company. But I have said from the beginning, I want it to be generational, which clearly can't always involve me. And I have to hire much better people. Also, by the way, me more than maybe in other sectors, I cannot and should not be the expert in a lot of these different areas. Right. I'm
Jordan Crook 50:55
not a physician, I'm not a pathologist, etc. And so I have been forced since the beginning to make sure that I had a lot of really strong people around the table helping to do this, right. And so I think that has been a model that just I got used to, and really carried with me in this process. But really liberating about that. There was like we are, yeah, I mean, there's obviously a huge benefit and advantage to being a founder who like spent 20 years in this industry, right? Like, that's great and super cool. And VCs love that. But there's something there's another hidden gem in the idea that like I don't really know much about this industry, but I'm the kind of personality that can bring in look at the team I've been able to build, right, because that translates everything, customers, partners, VCs hiring, right? Like the list goes on. And yeah, it's like almost more valuable to an extent. And that's really interesting. Like,
Julia Cheek 51:47
yeah, I mean, listen, nobody wanted to give me money when I started for that reason. And honestly, I didn't like if you looked at the list of criteria, I wouldn't have probably given me money either, right? I didn't have a background in this I was doing this idea, no one really believed was a problem, largely because it affected women at the time and has now become more broad. But I think that I've just continued to build the team and execute and just put the numbers up and hire the right people, we've been very fortunate. And with that growth, you have to both hire a lot of people and people transition out, but just getting incredible leaders and board members around the table that I think are good at holding up the mirror, and being able to say like, this is actually what we need to do, hey, here's some feedback, all those things. And it's made a huge difference. I mean, I had an executive coach back in 2016, to help me navigate all this, and I've had one since then. And I'm shocked by how many people are surprised by that. But there has to be an outlet for you to really be critical and self reflective as a founder and CEO, cuz you do have a lot of people oftentimes telling you what you want to hear.
Darrell Etherington 52:45
Yeah, yeah. I mean, I'm surprised that you had that right. But I think it's also like really useful to have as soon as you're like, in an executive position or mindset, like get that because a lot of people leave it for way too long. And it has a tremendous impact on the company in its formative stages. Right. And that sets the tone throughout throughout the duration. So yeah, I think we're almost out of time, which is crazy, because
Jordan Crook 53:11
like little by.
Darrell Etherington 53:14
But yeah, I mean, it's wild and interesting to me that you started because you were in like, Well, you were doing money transfer before. Yes. But you were just like, Oh, I think you solve this problem. You just wanted to solve the problem. But like, how did you decide that building your business was going to be the way
Julia Cheek 53:29
I can tell the story, truthfully, but very dramatically. That is like I had this health problem. I was in this journey for six months with all these different doctors paid all this money out of pocket to the labs, and I just quit my executive corporate job and started this company and I no idea what I was doing that is truthful. But I will tell you that since I graduated from business school, where I had the unique moment in time to be exposed I was at HBS during the Great Recession in 2009 2011. That class two years spawned like Birchbox Gilt Groupe Rent the Runway stitch, fix peak cooping. I have three unicorn founders in addition to me in my section at HBS. So like, it was this moment where that was like, what that experience did for me to say I knew I wanted to be a founder. I didn't become a founder until about four or five years post business school. But I was like, the nerd who outside of my job, which was demanding would be like meeting with people to go through different industries and ideas I was in for no purpose, like no money, no advising, right, just going through different sectors. I'd fly to meet up with friends, we do sessions of whiteboarding days, and I, you know, would rule out certain industries. But here's what I found in that process. I could come up with a lot of interesting ideas and business models. I didn't care about any of them. And so I kind of was still working through that I actually joined MoneyGram to get exposure to fintech. I thought it was really hot at the time and maybe I'd be able to learn something for a few years and go found something as a little late to the game and fintech at the time. Now it's researched quite a bit. But at the time, there was a lot going on in this space. And I was like, I don't think the timing is right. And so when this happened, I already had a pretty strong foundation. And obviously, this gut feeling that if I did not found a company, I would regret it the rest of my life. But I also had no qualms of like, I knew exactly how hard this was going to be, which was probably failure, and probably impossible. And so I wasn't just going to go do it for something that I didn't really care about. That was really kind of the five years preceding 2015 of that build up to that me having this moment, which then really made the decision pretty easy at the time.
Darrell Etherington 55:35
Wow. Yeah, it's intense to think you had that. And then you're just have this fire and you were just waiting for like a target. You needed that. Well, I guess you had the kindling, and you're waiting for the sparks. Yeah. Yeah. That's awesome. Well, thanks so much for joining us, Julia. Always great to talk to you and catch up and having me congratulate everything. It's been quite the story. And it'll be quite the story. I bet to come.
Julia Cheek 55:56
Thank you. Great to see you both. Again. It's been a little while, especially Jordan several years, so.
Darrell Etherington 56:10
Alright, Jordan, that was our chat with Julia. She's one of those people who has like just displays a level of confidence and capability that I think is like, omnipresent, and a little bit. It's reassuring. It's also like, if I was working for I'd be like, This is great. So is like,
Jordan Crook 56:26
unfortunately work for me. Right? Exactly. It's totally different.
Darrell Etherington 56:31
Mostly envious. I'm like, I wish I had a boss like,
Jordan Crook 56:34
Yeah, me too. To be honest. Don't tell Panzer. Yeah, it's true. She's like, confident without being arrogant, still has like this level of humility. And like pragmatism, that is coupled with optimism. I mean, like, we got into a long discussion on electronic medical records. And that was pretty discouraging to me, but yet her outlook in general, on the way that the healthcare industry can change, whether it's through like some consolidation around some of these oversaturated pieces of the industry, or just through like, simplifying, and making straightforward, some of these things that are really complicated. And at times, most of the time, overpriced, still left me feeling hopeful at the end, right. Yeah. And I think that that's a hard thing to do when we're talking about the United States healthcare system.
Darrell Etherington 57:21
Yeah, for sure. And I think she's really good. She's articulating a thing where basically, she was talking about EMR and EHR, depending I guess, on your preference, whatever you want to call it, but like, it's a bad situation, it's a hopeless situation for her in that one specific, but the outcomes are still very possible. Like she's that type of person where it's like, it doesn't mean we can't still achieve these great outcomes that I want. It's just there's gonna be a different road to it, right? Which is, yeah, fantastic. For a founder,
Jordan Crook 57:48
I really liked also the moments of candor around like, I haven't even taken time to self reflect on my own success, or the big moments in the company's history, right? Because I'm just always dealing with tomorrow, and what's on the docket and the problems to solve and the new partnerships to forge or whatever new companies to buy. Yeah, I do think like, on the one hand, I get it. And I think that's probably the best possible outlook for but I also like the moment of like, Wow, maybe I should do that a little bit more and like, feel the feelings of ultimately becoming a pretty successful founder, you know, she would never probably say that outright, like I am binary successful, right? But like, and probably that like constant trudge forward is what has given her as much success as she's had. But it was cool to kind of hear her thoughts on leadership, and just what it's like to integrate so many companies together, and the best way to do that and the honesty around like, I don't say the things that I don't know, like, I don't pretend to know, something I don't know. And I ask questions. And I'm pretty honest, I think that transparency came through, not only in like, what she's doing and the company culture and success, but like, also just in this podcast. She was pretty transparent with us, too.
Darrell Etherington 59:01
Yeah. Know, for sure. And yeah, I really did appreciate, like you said, that perspective of like, how did you get here was kind of like, well, I just kept taking steps, right. Like, that's a really interesting and refreshing way to talk about because a lot of people are like, no, no, it was always the plan. And it was very for the child. Right here, right? Yeah. But yeah, he lives me of the Santa Claus is coming to town, stop and go animation. You know, it's like the Rankin bass animated classic. No, I'm not going to try to sing it.
Jordan Crook 59:33
I mean, I don't know like what point you're making
Darrell Etherington 59:36
the song, put one foot in front of the other, and soon you'll be walking out that door. You should
Jordan Crook 59:40
say it. I don't know. Maybe it's originally
Darrell Etherington 59:44
by Mickey Rooney who himself does not have a very good voice, but I haven't
Jordan Crook 59:51
able to say that without having sung a single bar. Yeah, and I think a lot of founders too will try to like sound bite a Fae there. Success. Yes, that term, but like, I woke up in a sweat one night, and I had this thought, right, and like, try to turn it into this story of this point in time. And I think more often than not, the truth is that it's like, I took one step, it was the wrong one. So I turned back and went in the other direction, or I just kept taking small steps forward. And it's this collection, which isn't like juicy for us necessarily. But like, for this audience of founders, I think it's like kind of uplifting and encouraging thing to hear that it's just always these small steps over and over every day, that game,
Darrell Etherington 1:00:37
focus on what you're doing. And, you know, yeah, like pay attention there. And don't get too anxious about what comes next or whatever. But I think it's also cool for founders to hear about, you know, like, she had this idea that she just wanted to do it. She wanted to be a founder, so bad. And then because we talked to people on both sides of this paradigm, right, there'll be people who are like, I'd never wanted to be a founder, it was not in my plan. It was not in the cards, and then it just kind of like someone had to do it. And I figured I guess I have to reluctantly be the one to do it. Right. And then we have people like Julia, where it's like, I always wanted to be a founder. And she came from this really unique experience of being in this class of like a bunch of mega founders, that Harvard Business School, but then she didn't have the idea, right? But she had the drive and ambition, but she didn't have like a, what can I really care about that is going to sustain me through. And then that came later, like years later.
Jordan Crook 1:01:27
That was another thing that when we go back to the transparency thing that really worked for me, and made me like her even more was that I think I've done people who want to be founders generally. And I think the reason why that bothers me so much is because you can tell when someone quote, like, wants to be an entrepreneur without a passion or drive towards something, but then they pretend that they're passionate or driven towards something. And they pretend that this was what they had to do, rather than like, I just really wanted to be a founder. I think the fact that she was like honest about it, she's like, Yeah, I wanted to be a founder into export fintechs. I thought that was really hot, maybe I'll learn maybe I'll be able to start a fin tech company. And like, no, the timing wasn't right. It wasn't super into it. And then I had this personal pain point that like resonated so deeply with me, I was like, Aha, here's my idea. Here's how I'm going to be a founder. Even the fact that she talked about her founder identity being more real or prominent within her than her CEO identity and kind of like building the company in a way where she could be replaceable, or redundant, was just really refreshing, right? Like, there's nothing wrong with wanting to be an entrepreneur. I think it's like when you aren't transparent about that or candid about that. That starts to feel a little slimy. For some Yes, at least. Yeah, I
Darrell Etherington 1:02:37
mean, it's another one of those things, where like, is it more about the identity and the perception of the thing then, like the thing itself, and I think generally tends to rankle especially me and you because we're so cool. Yeah.
Unknown Speaker 1:02:51
Yeah.
Jordan Crook 1:02:53
We're so happy in our mediocrity, you know? Yeah, like we're so satisfied. Yeah. No, the road. It's really all
Unknown Speaker 1:03:05
right, anyways, good place to end I think just right now.
Darrell Etherington 1:03:10
Everyone should definitely check out the Austin City Spotlight again, TechCrunch live April 6, this Wednesday, you can participate through hoppin also, just check out we're gonna have a ton of Austin based content on the site, lots of articles, profiles and stuff like that. So check that out as well.
Jordan Crook 1:03:27
And you can click the link in our show notes to register for that. Yes. So you can do that right now? Yeah, right now you're listening on your phone, whatever you just got.
Darrell Etherington 1:03:37
Yeah, just come in and join the chat. Remind me in Jordan about how inadequate we are. You know, totally,
Jordan Crook 1:03:43
I mean, that's a fun way to spend it. At the very least.
Unknown Speaker 1:03:47
Alright, thanks. Later do your roast.
Darrell Etherington 1:03:53
Round is those two by myself? TechCrunch news editor Darrell Etherington and TechCrunch Managing Editor Jordan crook shot McCarney is our executive producer. We are produced by Maggie Stamets and edited by Cal Keller TechCrunch. His audio products are managed by Henry pic of it. You can find us on Apple podcast Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts and on twitter@twitter.com slash ban. You can also email us at found@techcrunch.com and you can call us and leave a voicemail at 510-936-1618. Also, we'd love if you could spare a few minutes to fill out our listener survey at bit.li/bound listener survey. Thanks for listening and we'll be back next week.
Transcribed by https://otter.ai