Closing Time Podcast

We've enjoyed working on Closing Time over the last year and meeting with incredible healthcare founders and VCs. Thank you, listeners, for tuning in!

Going forward, you can find us on The Heart of Healthcare podcast. We'll continue to explore the world of healthcare startups and innovation, bringing you conversations with founders, innovators, and thought leaders every Monday.

Search for and subscribe to The Heart of Healthcare wherever you listen to podcasts. Or visit our website: https://www.heartofhealthcarepodcast.com/

In this episode of Closing Time, Michael and Halle sit down with Seth Sternberg, the co-founder and CEO of Honor. Seth shares his inspiring journey of tackling the immense challenge of providing quality home care at scale.

We cover:

- Building the largest home care network with the most advanced care platform

- Treating care professionals with respect, providing job stability, and crafting attractive roles to retain top talent

- Honor's unique business model, its acquisition of Home Instead, and the company's vision for expansion

- The importance of passion and support from forward-thinking investors in solving big societal problems

In this episode, Cobi Blumenfeld-Gantz, CEO and co-founder of Chapter, discusses how his personal experience with his parents' struggle with Medicare inspired him to create a platform that simplifies and optimizes the Medicare enrollment process. Chapter operates as a Medicare brokerage, assisting seniors in navigating the complex Medicare system. They also offer a consumer-focused app that allows users to redeem benefits in their Medicare plans. The company has experienced significant growth and has raised $50 million in a recent funding round. They aim to become the retirement platform of the future, helping seniors live the retired lives they want.

We cover:

Developing a recommendation engine to improve how seniors choose health coverage

Managing a seasonal business

How seniors technology interaction patterns differ

New regulations and changes in the Medicare world

Growth, hiring, and fundraising

In this episode of Closing Time, Vanessa Rissetto, registered dietitian and co-founder of Culina Health, pitches her company's personalized nutrition platform. Culina Health pairs patients with registered dietitians to provide one-on-one nutrition counseling, with 91% of patients utilizing their insurance benefits. Rissetto discusses how her company is democratizing access to clinical nutrition care, leveraging technology and AI to make dietitians more efficient, and generating compelling health outcomes data. She also shares insights on the powerful combination of GLP-1 medications with personalized nutrition for weight management, and her vision for making nutrition counseling a standard part of preventive healthcare.

We cover:

- Going from making $1 million in their first year of business to $5.8 million this year

- Developing creative user acquisition strategies with $0 marketing dollars

- How GLP-1 medications has impacted the business

- The pros and cons of taking funding from payors

- Digital health business models including D2C and B2B2C

- Vanessa's personal journey with breast cancer and how it influenced her mission to improve healthcare access and health literacy

- Culina Health's $10 million Series A fundraising round, and the company's potential exit strategies

With a focus on profitability over hyper-growth, the team at Hone Health has built one of the largest men's health telehealth platforms. In this episode, co-founder & COO Stuart Blitz pitches this concept to our hosts.

Our guest VC in this episode is Lynne Chou O’Keefe, Founder and Managing Partner at Define Ventures, and investor in hims, Folx, Found, and more. We dive into the business and discuss: 

• Which parts of healthcare work well for D2C business models, and is this one of them
• User acquisition and their pay-back period 
• The trade-off in top-line growth and building healthy unit economics 
• How they ensure positive customer experience even for those who don’t qualify for treatment

Lynne also discusses how fundraising today is like managing A Tale of Two Cities, investors want to see the growth of 2020 along with the business fundamentals of 2022.

We’re back talking about startup employment law! In this episode, we double click on terminations. One of the hardest things every founder and manager has to do in their job is letting people go. Whether it's due to poor performance or a restructuring, there are right and wrong ways to handle it. Our guest, Fenwick employment lawyer Sheeva Ghassemi walks us through the steps on handling terminations legally and compassionately.

We cover:

• Common grounds for termination including poor performance and reorganization
• How behavioral-based performance issues can be harder to support than job description performance issues
• How to handle terminations legally and with fairness and compassion
• The importance of documentation and performance management in the termination process
• How to conduct termination meetings
• When and how to cut off access to company resources and ensure compliance with state-specific requirements

In this episode, Fenwick employment lawyer Sheeva Ghassemi joins us to discuss various aspects of employment law that all founders should know. From the legal risks and consequences of misclassifying workers to navigating employment laws with remote employees across multiple states, this episode is a must-listen for anyone hiring and growing a team.

We discuss:

• The difference between employees and contractors, and exempt vs non-exempt classifications
• How misclassifying workers can lead to major legal issues
• How to navigate employment laws with employees in multiple states
• PEOs, AORs, and EORs, oh my!
• What non-compete agreements are and when they are and aren’t enforceable
• How AI algorithms in hiring can introduce bias and discrimination

May is Mental Health Awareness Month! In this episode, Michael Esquivel and Halle Tecco sit down with David Ko, CEO of Calm, to discuss the mental health challenges founders and their teams face. They discuss practical strategies for building resilience, managing the relentless pressure, and why destigmatizing mental health is crucial for startup success. David shares how leaders can champion well-being, creating a workplace where mental health support is the norm, not the exception. This episode is a must-listen for anyone who believes building a thriving business starts with a healthy mindset.

We cover:

- How resilience is built through learning from mistakes and taking risks

- Where stress comes from and if you can really eliminate it

- How to lead by example and create a supportive work environment

- Generational shifts in the conversation around mental health

- Why mental health should be normalized throughout the year and not just during Mental Health Awareness Month

In this episode, Christine Lemke, co-founder and CEO of Evidation Health, shares how her personal struggles with chronic pain fueled her mission to transform how we measure and improve health outcomes. She shares the company's evolution and innovative approach to generating real-world evidence (RWE) using a global research platform serving millions of people.

We discuss:

- The power of real-world data and understanding health outside the clinic

- Lessons from pivots: Evidation's journey to its current focus

- How they recruit diverse participants, prioritize consent, and even compensate individuals

- Accelerating research and making it more representative of the populations drugs will actually serve

- Where the company's unique data platform goes next, and how it could change healthcare

In this episode, Sebastian Seiguer, CEO of Scene Health, introduces his company’s innovative use of video technology to drive medication adherence, particularly among underserved populations. He shares how Scene Health supports patients, leading to better outcomes and significant cost savings for payers.

We discuss:

- The challenges of medication non-adherence and its impact on patients and the healthcare system

- How Scene Health's video platform empowers patients and creates unique engagement opportunities

- Strategies for successful implementation within public health departments and Medicaid plans

- The importance of building a care team passionate about this unique approach

- The potential of AI to further enhance the Scene Health model