Telemedicine Talks

#9 - From Handbag Designer to Telemedicine Trailblazer: Building a Health Tech Revolution

Episode Summary

What does it take to go from designing handbags to scaling one of the largest telemedicine companies in the U.S.? In this episode, Dr. Leo Damasco and Phoebe Gutierrez sit down with Chris Turtizin, a digital health pioneer, to explore his journey building Bicycle Health and launching Single Aim—a platform empowering clinicians to start their own practices.

Episode Notes

Episode Transcription

[00:00:00] All right everyone. Welcome back to telemedicine Talks. Um, today I am so excited to have a very special guest, um, attend our show and, and kind of like have a conversation with us. Um, he has been a really big mentor, especially over the last, you know, couple of months in my life and has just truly like, completely changed my outlook on.

You know, kind of like my, my, my work in the health tech industry, um, he's given me the courage to kind of like build this thing that I think is gonna be a game changer for doctors and, and clinicians. Um, and he's taught me so much about marketing. Uh, Chris, thank you so much for coming on our show today.

Yeah. Happy to be here. Chris. Chris, thank you for jumping on, um, telemedicine talks. It's, it's awesome to have somebody of your caliber on. And, um, able to kind of dig into your experiences and hopefully, you know, [00:01:00] um, learn a thing or two. Right. And, um, as we go, um, look into your journey of where you came from and where you're at right now and this awesome thing you're building.

Um, yeah. So what, what is your, how did you foray into telemedicine and where'd you, where'd you start? Yeah. Yeah. So probably need to go way back to answer that question. Um, I basically, I actually was a designer for a while. Um, my first job outta college, I was a handbag designer. Little, little would most people know you?

I thought a web designer, but I was like, whoa, I'm just thinking product designer from nowhere. Okay. Yeah. No, no. When people meet me, they're like, that guy likely did not design handbags. Um, but yeah, no, I was a fashion designer. Um, I, I studied product design in college and then I immediately moved to Europe and became a, [00:02:00] like a high-end.

I. Handbag designer. And, um, in that experience, it was a, it was a short experience. I, I learned that that wasn't a great fit for me. Um, I made some good handbags and I actually occasionally see, see women out there in the world wearing, wearing my handbag. And I, I've walked up to some of them. It's just in aside, what handbags are these?

'cause now I really wanna take a look at it. It's, you know, this is not the point of the talk, but now I'm just intrigued. Yeah. I worked for a small, uh, firm based in Berlin. Uh, I believe it's called Ish now. So you can look it up. I think they're still around right now. I am, yeah. Alright. Okay. Carry, carry on.

Um, anyways, this is a tangent, but I, yeah, I started as a designer. Um, but I, I realized that basically like what really got me going was working on new things where there was just like a lot of complexity. They, there were bringing new things into the world. Um, and I just felt like I. Like the digital world was where it was at for that.

So I, I transitioned into [00:03:00] digital design. Um, this was in like the, the auts of, of the two thousands. And um, basically spent like around 10 years of my life building in consumer internet. Um, ending up, I was at Facebook now quite a long time ago, um, in the early teens, uh, worked on the growth team at Facebook where I basically like learned a lot of my, my, my growth skills, um, and then also some other teams there, like international teams, um, messenger, other things.

And so I spent those, those like year, like early years of my career on consumer internet and, um. To be honest, needed a change. Um, I think if you talk about the, the products I was focusing on wasn't particularly inspired by Phoebe knows and not much of like a social, social media user. Um, and I wasn't then either.

And so it just wasn't, wasn't feeling like these products were, were something I really wanted to like, you know, spread throughout the world as a growth person. It's [00:04:00] like a degree, like being a, like a religious fanatic. Like you, you have, you have to be into what you're doing, uh, because you're basically promoting it all, all day long, even if the gross things you do are very like backend and you have to be inspired by it.

So, um, I made like a heart pivot in my career, uh, and. You know, I, I chose, I chose to jump into healthcare at that point. Um, I had a short list of things, um, and, and that, that rose to the top. I think what, what drew me to it and like in hindsight, what drew me to it was just kind of the infinite complexity of it.

It's like this, this world where it, it punishes being a noob and rewards being like deeply experienced. And I think I wanted to be in a place where I would just get better over time. I think also it just feels like this. Yeah, kinda like a, there's good and bad of this, like a kind of forever problem. Like there's always, there's always improvements to be made.

Um, so I think [00:05:00] it just like sort of the massiveness, the complexity, I think, um, I was attracted to kind of the regulatory aspect. I think part of it that was, has always been kind of interesting to me is this overlap between kind of anything goes. Growth world, um, which you find on the internet, you know, people saying selling like e-course and supplements and stuff.

And then the sort of very regulated, very structured nature of traditional healthcare. And so I've always kind of like, since I made that pivot, now, this was over 10 years ago, 11 years ago, I've kind of lived in this like intersection between those two worlds, uh, of sort of like where, where the internet collides with healthcare.

Um, and I've, I've been able to have some really. Just great experiences. The, the, the two main experiences I've had were, um, I was with Virta Health for three years, um, and, and focused on, uh, basically building out a lot of their patient experience and [00:06:00] patient growth aspects. They've, they've grown a lot since then.

I'm very excited for them. They're doing well and then. Right around, I started working on the side with, uh, the c, the CEO of bicycle health in 2019. And it was a very small business at the time. We had a few hundred patients and it was basically a local business because we were constrained by, uh, regulations in terms of, uh, remote prescription of controlled substances.

And, uh, and then the pandemic, you know, rolls along. And I was, I was laying on my couch, actually, the couch right behind me here. Um, I remember it was like March 20th, and I just like pulled up an article. It's like the DEA is changing the rules temporarily for controlled substance prescription. And like, whoa, this is gonna change everything for, for, uh, bicycle health.

And I was just like helping out on the side. And I was working at Verta full time and. Um, my wife encouraged me that [00:07:00] night to call up, uh, Ankit, the CEO of bicycle and just say like, Hey, hey, dude. Um, I don't know if you want me, but if you do, let's, let's do this. And, uh, and I, I joined, I joined full-time, like days later.

Um, and so that was like right at the beginning of the pandemic and then like, you know, lots of, lots of stuff happened after that. So we, um, we went through a series of funding rounds. Um. We grew quickly. You know, I think bicycle's now 40 plus states in the us um, tens of thousands of patients. Um, I'm trying to think what they've announced recently.

Um, just announced profitability. Um, so yeah, it's, I I can, I can, I can dive into the, like, the kind of the mechanics of how we did that. Um, went from 200 to tens of thousands in, in just a few years. Um, but yeah, that, that was like a really great experience to apply a lot of these, you know, it's kind of similar, like this [00:08:00] intersection between internet growth and, and healthcare in an area that has just traditionally been pretty sleepy, which was, um, MOUD like, uh, Suboxone treatment for, for opioid just disorder.

Yeah. And, and those that don't know bicycle health, right. I'm just looking up. It's, it's, it's basically one of the bigger suboxone. Kind of treat telemedicine treatment places, right. That you could find online. Yeah. I believe, and I believe, and this is, it's the largest telemedicine provider. Yeah. And there's a blurb online.

It's, it's the, it was one of times a hundred most influential companies in like 2022. So, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I mean it's, it's a very important company and I think we've also been involved in a lot of the advocacy. We've been very actively involved in the advocacy around, I. Um, access to controlled substance prescription, um, for people in remote areas who don't have access.

There was like a, there's been a series of attempts [00:09:00] to roll back the regulations, which have luckily not happened. Um, yeah, so we, it's a, it's a really great organization and I think, you know, from the beginning has, has the right perspective, has done things well, um, you know, has been one of the good players in the telemedicine world and has weathered a lot of the kind of ups and downs.

About the industry. Um, and then I guess the final chapter, I, I rolled off a bicycle about a year ago. Yeah, about a year ago. And, um, started an organization called Single Aim. And Single AIM is basically a place for people who are starting their own clinical organizations to get compliance help. Um, and just like the steps you need to start, start a clinical business, we are focused.

Primarily on connecting nurse practitioners and physician's assistants with collaborating physicians and medical directors. Um, but yeah, we got a lot of, a lot of stuff in the works too. Oh, that's [00:10:00] awesome. That's awesome. From like handbag designer to now, you know, deep in the telehealth kind of community and now helping others.

And what what was interesting too, I found that, you know, your, your two top companies that you mentioned is definitely involves like a patient population that. It's been underserved. Right. You know, Virta Right. Is, is diabetes. Right. And then, um, the suboxone, the OD population. Right. And it's, it's amazing how you could reach out and touch that population and make it more accessible.

So, and I know you were talking about how, you know, you wanted to basically, like it was religious for you, right? You had to believe in it. And it's amazing that. You know, you went, you went deep into that and, and helped build these companies actually succeed in bicycle like we were talking about. It's a very successful company and, you know, serving, I'm an ER doc and I see this population a lot when I was practicing brick and mortars, you know, serving a population where, you know, it was deeply underserved and deeply ostracized too.

Right? You know, [00:11:00] a lot of these patients were very, uh, hesitant to get out and actually seek care because of that. Now. You know, um, you're giving 'em the access, so kudos and No, that's, that's super awesome. Yeah, I mean, I can, I can say there's, there was a lot of like, um, I think a lot of people think, a lot of people that don't have exposure to the people experiencing OUD may have some unknowns about how the kind of, the process of receiving treatment goes.

Um. You're totally right that generally in, in, in communities the services for OUD are not the kinds of places that you or I want to be hanging out. Yeah. Um, and you know, of course there's exceptions there, um, in the sense that people feel like [00:12:00] addicts when they're there. And we really focused from the beginning on making essentially like a premium experience for people.

Um, so there was like a premium option so that, you know, that's about service. It's about like, it's about just like catching people and being like really hands-on, like from the beginning. It's about offering the technology, like just basic stuff like scheduling online, rescheduling your appointment, paying bills online, like stuff like that.

Um, also, um, in our protocols being patient centered. Um, so there's a lot of things there and I. Um, I think another thing that often people think about that group of people is that it's going, you're gonna have to kind of convince them to, you know, switch to recovery. Yeah. And that was like one of the, okay.

Really early learnings for me, especially on like, the way that we were gonna find patients was [00:13:00] so many people are just like, seeking it is like almost a transactional relationship. You just, they're just kind of looking for someone. That treats them well and they can get what they need. They know what they want.

They know what they need. You don't have to do any convincing. Um, yeah, it's, I like to often think of bicycle health as a, like the world's largest virtual, urgent care for opioid use disorder, where people basically walk in with, with a problem, either they're in withdrawal or they lost access to like a supplier.

Or there's, there was some sort of like bottoming out experience and, and you know, we're, we're gonna be there. Um, just the, the amount of people that were like ready to go in hours, um, you know, wait, the other thing I'll mention was, and I think this speaks to that urgent care nature is, I think this applies to all telemedicine actually, but I think it applies more so to certain types of telemedicine.[00:14:00]

The, the importance of speed in, in access. And what we learned was literally the number of hours it took for us to get somebody treated had a very high relationship with our long-term outcomes. So if you could get somebody, like a doctor visit and a prescription within, say, four to eight hours, four to eight hours, there was like a two x improvement in the overall, um, like rate of adoption of, of what we were offering.

You find that's ma, that's a magic number for this, for this kind of market. Yeah. Yeah. I mean the faster the better and yeah. And so we just pivoted everything we could do. I think like our growth story basically was twofold. One is like figuring out how to, like what growth channels worked and secondly is just doing everything really fast.

Um. And, uh, and, and that's a very common theme, right in, in these successful telemedicine companies is just access, access, access, right? Because compared to brick, and do you know the numbers of brick and [00:15:00] mortar? What, you know, compared to brick and mortar, what, what's the access time to brick and mortar?

Did you guys ever look at that and compare? Yeah, we've definitely heard anecdote. I'm sure there's studies of this. I mean, I, I, I've certainly read studies where it's long and I mean long to the point where it's almost useless. Yeah. I mean, the majority of people were arriving at bicycle health in withdrawal.

So they were, they're experiencing, yeah, like the symptoms of withdrawal. It was very painful for them. And then you've got an appointment three months from now, like, what does that even mean? You know, it's, it's essentially irrelevant. So, um, that's why it matters so much. Yeah. No, that's amazing. That's amazing.

And, and definitely again, you know, seeing this population, the er, seeing this population withdrawals with very limited, you know, with here in Hawaii, very limited resources. So being able to actually direct somebody there and say, Hey, you know, this, this could help out. That's huge. Yeah. That's huge. So, [00:16:00] so, um, and as, as you grew this, any, you know, bringing it back to the docs and the provider side, any life lessons.

That you could impart, you know, how can doctors, providers kind of, you know, if, if they wanted to be involved in something like this, grow something like this, you know, maybe, maybe like kind of the top three things that you could say, Hey, you know, do this, you know, this is what you want to do. Maybe, you know, set the foundation for any, any kind of nuggets of advice.

Hmm. So we're talking about a like physician or provider that like wants to start something along the lines of bicycle health. Is that what you're Yeah. Or that, or just just get into, you know, just get into the market, you know? Yeah. Get into a company like this, maybe, you know, maybe from the seed stage, maybe from the foundation on Yeah.

You know, because a lot of people, um, you know, tele telemedicine's blown up and you're getting these doctors that are [00:17:00] now trying to be entrepreneurs, they're trying to be owners, trying to be. You know, trying to be now leaders in this space. Right. And then we're gonna connect this back to your current, kind of what you're doing right now, but you know, what, in, in your experience while building, you know, especially in these two, in these two companies, what can providers do?

You know, physicians do PAs, nps, whatever. What can they do to position themselves to, to succeed and to get in there? Yeah. I mean, there's kind of a little bit of a choose your own adventure aspect to this because there's like various paths you can take. So there's certainly like, you know, someone who's gonna do direct patient care and that is the majority of, so you, I look at a bicycle or I look at um, you know, sort of all the peers.

You know, if you look at the majority of providers that are involved in these organizations, they're doing direct patient care. Um, and then, you know, that generally fits into 10 99 relationships or W2 relationships. [00:18:00] Uh, why school health? They did only W2 relationships. Um, and, but then there's, there's other options and that may be specifically interesting to your, to your audience.

So there's, you know, we, we, at Bicycle Health needed collaborating physicians also in, you know, many, many states. So that's an option, um, where you can, you know, be, you know, in a mentorship relationship with, uh, these teams of, uh, physician assistants and nurse practitioners working at these organizations.

And most, most of these telemedicine organizations will either do that in, in-house or out outsource that. In addition, there's other similar relationships, and this kind of depends on the industry. For example, like in the aesthetics industry, there's need for medical directors across each, each, uh, med spa.

Um, there's also like the kind of, but more rare but important PC owner roles that exist. Um, those are often in-house. Some sometimes, um, like an, an external like, meaning like the, like the CMO or the co-founder will be the, the p the PC owner. But sometimes an external party will be found. [00:19:00] Um, and then I would say also inside of the clinical team.

It's not just seeing patients all day long at bicycle health. We carved out a lot of like sub roles on the team, like clinical leadership roles, uh, clinical clinical management roles. And that would, that would basically be defined as like some portion of your time is def is is based on, you know, managing a team or, uh, deciding, you know, the, figuring out the clinical decisions that the team would do.

Um, I would say also, uh, and this is generally in the sort of. More like larger. Uh, we had a research endeavor and we would do actually, uh, run research studies. So that was true at Virta too, and the clinicians would get involved in that. Mm-hmm. Um, those are more rare, just 'cause you have to have a, you know, of course, sort of extra funding to do it.

But it's very important if you can do it and you should check out the bicycle health research page. And also Virta Health has done a ton of, ton of research. Um, the last piece I would add to that, and this is. I find a lot of people kind of want to get into this is the kind of [00:20:00] product slash tech slash clinical liaison role where you're the, you're the one.

Um, that's, that's basically like the clinical expert in communicating with the product team, like what needs to be done. And this is an extremely essential role. And I think if you talk like, I, I don't know, I've read various articles about how this fails over and so over and over and over again, there's like failure cases where.

Um, the product team isn't listening enough to the, the clinical team and the clinical team. It really is both the user and also the voice of the patient in, in these products. So, you know, it makes entire sense that they should be the primary voice of input in what should be built. Um, so yeah, that, uh, you know, at, at bicycle, you know, I could, I, there was, there was people in all of those roles.

Um.

That's really cool. Yeah. Every, every startup I've ever worked [00:21:00] at would probably never listen to a physician like, I don't know from the product side. Um, you know how, you know how that goes, but there's this interesting people that are like physician turn product people there. There's like a few of them just maybe like, I don't know how many there are, but I've certainly met them.

Um, yeah, it's a pretty, pretty unique role. Do, do they, do they run from like. Company and a company and be like, Hey, I'm, I'm your product clinical guy, huh? Yeah, I think a lot of them are. Sorry. Oh, uh, I was gonna say, so when I, when I was at, uh, working on a really massive project, um, they had two product sides and one of them was like clinical products.

I think there were a couple physicians, a couple nurses, um, and they were all consultants. So they went like project to project to project Pro. Now that I'm thinking about it, probably because it's just such a niche. Yeah, skillset, you know, can, most physicians don't understand like, oh, I'm gonna click this button and this button is gonna trigger this thing and it's gonna, you [00:22:00] know, 'cause that's like kind of the meat and bones of some of the stuff.

So, sorry Chris, go ahead. Yeah, you don't need to, I mean, you don't have to know all that product stuff, but the goal of like a product person is to, you know, interpret that. Um, one model I've seen is like, there's a person who has a lot of what you consider, like medical leadership roles kind of bundled into one.

Like they'll be the PC owner, they'll be like the product liaison. Um, and maybe also be the CMO or something like that. Um, because yeah, these are all kind of partial roles. Well, CMO is probably not, but the other, the other two are, are partial roles. Um, yeah. Yeah. And if I, if I was in that, if I had gone the med school route, I feel like I'd want that job.

Yeah. I, I want that job just thinking about how do I break into that job? You know? Yeah. You know, I have the PC owners, I'm, I'm, you know, um, an advisor, but that sounds, you know, being kind of the marriage of the two sounds very interesting. Yeah. And, and yeah. You're needed. Yeah. [00:23:00] What I would, I mean, my recommendation would just be to get involved in these, with these, with these telemedicine leadership roles like collaborations, like PC owners, like medical directors.

I think that just gives you exposure to the organization, gives you like that in. I don't know. I mean, organizations will be different. Some will ignore a, you know, the a, a physician that says like, I wanna, I'm, I'm interested in helping with your product, but some will not ignore that. And probably the ones that don't ignore it are the ones you wanna work with anyways.

Oh, absolutely. Um, yeah. Yeah. Well let, let's pivot and, and talk about, and it's kind of related, you know, you're talking about all these leadership roles. And, and the physicians And Phoebe, please interrupt me. I've been talking a lot. Um, you know, let's pivot into what, what you both are doing now. Um, what's, what's going on with that?

Because, you know, we've been talking about, yes, let's build this, let's build this. So what you guys have is basically a, a way that well, to connect everything together, [00:24:00] right? So just to tell me more about that. Yeah, no, I can, I can kind of give the, the little story of like how Chris and I met, which is funny 'cause it's so.

Offbrand for me, like very, just like out of left field. Um, I, you know, Leo, you know, I consult for physicians, they ask me and the first thing that they're, you know, they, they're always asking is, I want these roles. I want collaborating physician, you know, I want, you know, I wanna be a collaborating doctor.

I wanna find a PC role. I want all these things. So, um, when I first stepped out into doing my own consulting, I started just researching. 'cause you know, like I'm a huge researcher and there was one website I. They had really good content and was like really transparent, was all data driven and it was single aim.

And I kept coming back and I was like, who is like, I've been in this industry for so long, I've never heard of this company. I don't know who these people are. Like where did they pop up from? Like what? I honestly thought it was like another competitor that was like trying to rebrand and shift like that was my guess.

Yeah. [00:25:00] And um. Again, completely off what I would normally do. I'm like, I'm gonna, I'm gonna pretend to like be a lead. I'm gonna like reach out to this guy. I'm gonna set up some time. Um, and like within like the first like three minutes, Chris and I just started talking about what he wanted to do with Sing Lane, kind of like the origin story, how it came about, and I think also asked if I wanted to buy it.

And, and I got off the call and I was like, really ex, it was a really weird feeling, but it was like, I think I just met somebody that like, there was so much synergy. I can't, I can't not say something. And I put together a pitch deck and I was like, my first pitch deck to Chris. You probably didn't know that.

Um, and I was like. Do you want a partner? And let's go, let's go do this thing. And um, it, we met a few times and then it was like, all right, let's, let's do this. And it started [00:26:00] September. I think it was both our wedding anniversaries odd enough as well. Um, oh yeah. And that's, that's how I remember. I was like, okay.

Like me and Chris met around September. 'cause we both had our wedding anniversaries at the same time. Um, and yeah, and so like to me, like that was a little bit of like, you know, kind of, you know, and I, I don't know Chris, like, I know I'm talking now a lot, but, you know, I think one thing is like meeting somebody, again, I'm very similar to Chris.

I have to work on things that I'm passionate about. The second I lose interest, I, I just don't wanna do it. And I, I really have to kind of see the value and the, and to me, like this was something that was so needed in this industry, especially as like both Chris and I had like direct ties to like. How it was working and we thought the system was broken.

We thought it didn't benefit practitioners, we thought it didn't benefit physicians. Um, and we just, we, we wanted to create something that was better. Um, and that was more driven from like, what actual clinicians and doctors wanted. Yeah. [00:27:00] Oh, that's awesome. That's awesome. Yeah, no, it was good timing. Um, I had started Single Lane and you know, I, I, there's things I'm good at, there's things I'm not good at, and I.

Um, I was getting kind of overwhelmed with the operational aspect to it and, um, you know, Phoebe showed up and I was like, wow, this, I think this person can, can manage the complexity. But yeah, we, I think, um,

what we're trying to do is essentially build out tools that make it easy to start a clinical business. And essentially treat everybody like adults in the process of doing that. Um, and by doing that, just being the most transparent in everything we possibly can do. So, you know, we're focusing on collaborating physicians.

It's, there's reasons for that. It's, um, you know, it's a need. It's like one of these, like, you, you just need it getting started in, in [00:28:00] many places. So there's a lot of demand for it. Um. But we're trying to do it in a very transparent way, like our prices, we try to be transparent. We have articles, um, on, on like the cost transparency.

Um, you know, we're, we're clear on our, on like our take, uh, in the marketplace, um, which I don't believe is true for any of the competition. Um, and, and we also basically put the process in the hands of the clinicians and the physicians. So it becomes a place where. Both the, you know, the clinic or clinician can, you know, is there to basically build their business and the physician is there to build essentially like a side business for themselves.

Like as a telemedicine leader, they can take on these roles. I think a lot of us in both Phoebe and I are pretty experienced with other service marketplaces like Upwork, Fiverr, et cetera, and you know, or understand the dynamics of how that works. And just looked at this industry and were like, why does this not exist here?

And you know, we've, I think [00:29:00] we've shown that it. It should exist. And there's like a lot of, um, benefit just putting, putting the control in the hands of both of those sides of the party, not, not being like a sort of overly involved middle, middle person. Um, and then just trying to provide data wherever possible.

Uh, and also just like highly competent insights wherever possible. And I highly competent, useful tools wherever possible. So the, the places where like a, you know, a platform is useful, we provide that. And when we step away where it's not useful and we try to, you know, do it at the most affordable rate possible, and then our growth has been entirely organic.

Um, some of the content that Phoebe was mentioning is the source of most of our growth. So articles on like collaborating, physician pay, we have articles about like templates for collaborating, physician agreements, um, and then also just our marketplace. We, [00:30:00] we, you know, we're, all of our pages are public and you can see, you know, what jobs are being posted, um, when physicians are available.

So, yeah, um, you know, we, there's a lot, there's a lot to be built here and, uh, we're just. Like other, other services in, in the marketplace also. Um, but you know, we, we always have an eye on, on the physician and what, like, how they want to grow their own, I dunno the right word to call. It's like, um, you know, our, our quintessential physician is like this, this one that like wants to take on a handful of these leadership roles, wants to be, you know, in the telemedicine industry, um, you know, may still maintain a job at like a more traditional job, but like wants this to kind of.

Take over more and more of their time. Um, and so we want to, we want to provide what's useful to them, which are these, these roles themselves, but also, uh, services for, for keeping track of them because they can get, they can get overwhelming. [00:31:00] Um, and then on the clinician, our clinic side, it's really, you know, the connection with what they need, which is the collaborating physician or medical director.

And then like the compliance. Understanding. So, you know, be that, uh, like template documents or just a guidance on, you know, what to do in this state or this state. So, no, that's definitely huge because you've touched upon upon a bunch of points, right? Because, you know, um, you know, myself getting into this game, getting the telemedicine market, you know, that, that was one of my bigger questions where it still is, right?

It's where can I find these shops, you know? Um. Yeah, how can I get into these leaderships? Where can I go and, you know, um, I'm part of this coaching community and that's an often asked question to the coaches and, you know, where, where do I start? Right? And so this is awesome that there is, there's an easy place to start.

This is almost like an easy button to start. [00:32:00] Um, and plus the compliance issue is huge, right? Because you could just go start and find anybody on LinkedIn, right? And they're like, Hey, being a collaborator. But if you don't know what you're doing, then you're, then you're, you know, you're putting your licenses up and you're putting your whole livelihood up, you know, at risk if, if you're not aware of what you're doing.

So, you know, this is, this is a huge service, very useful. Um, if you see an application from a pediatrician, an ER doctor. Put a little asterisk to it for me. De deny, he'll get, oh man, I'm gonna keep on hammering it. Um, but no, no, no. This is awesome. This is awesome. So, well, and I think, I think too to, just to kind of like piggyback off of that, like, I think one of the, like one of my strong suits, um, has always been on the, you know, I'm gonna say like customer service side.

Um, and you know, some people call it customer success. In [00:33:00] theory, it's all consulting. That's really all it is. And so to me it was like the, the biggest thing for me has been like, you know, I, I wanted to try and like automate things in the very beginning and I really realized like, this is the population that needs the human touch and like they deserve that customer service.

And even if it works out, like they're asking questions and it like. With a five minute conversation if I could like take away all of their anxiety. Like I wanna have the five minute conversation and like that means more to me than anything. You know, like I've had multiple practitioners that like I was working with for months that like came back and was like, oh, I actually found a local collaborator and like I.

That's great. That's wonderful. 'cause like, at the end of the day, like, we just wanna support you if you need this service. And if it, if it doesn't, then like, that's totally fine too. But I think it's also like, it's, and, and Leo, you know, this, like, this is just a population where you have doctors working with companies.

That are tell, telling them the rules are, the rules are fine. The rules are fine. Yeah. And then like I'm auditing them [00:34:00] going like, what the heck are you do? Like, why are you in Alabama, man? Like, what are you doing? You know? And so having that like unbiased person who just truly cares, like, you know, like to me, like I have to tell doctors every day because they're like, they'll, you know, in our portal, they'll confirm a collaboration agreement.

They'll like, oh, I wanna take this one. And I'm like, you don't meet the requirements. So like, you do what you want, but you don't meet the requirements And like. I don't think that's a good idea. You know? So to me it's like just being that like extra voice where like they have a person, they can talk to you about some of this stuff.

Who, who understands it. And like if, I don't know, I call the board. Like I, I try to like figure it out for them. Like, I think that's, again, just like something that I, I do it because like, I actually really enjoy it. And like, I think that's also been something that's been like really great in terms of working on this whole thing of like.

I just feel very like, fulfilled. And again, like Chris is probably like, oh my God. Like, I hate that part of it, but like, I think that's why it works. You know? Like, I think [00:35:00] that's why like this whole thing has worked where like, you know, like I kind of have just leaned into my strengths. He's leaned into his and like, we have just somehow built this thing in what date?

Four months? You know, like, and, and it's. Every day we're getting more and more feedback, and we're listening to feed, you know, we're listening to doctors, we're listening to practitioners. We're we're taking that into, you know, into consideration and really building it into our strategy. 'cause like the end of the day, like, if, if this is something that they don't want or that doesn't work for them, then like, I don't wanna do this.

Like, then we're, we're, we're doing the wrong thing. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. And definitely having somebody that can navigate that minefield for you and that likes to do it right. And it's just not just begrudgingly doing it. That's huge. I'll say a lot of the topics that we encounter, there's basically nothing on the internet for them, which, like, I, you know, being somebody who's used to like search engine optimization, um, and like content marketing, usually you [00:36:00] search something and there's like a thousand articles on it.

Yeah. But like I was talking. Um, to actually a physician, uh, a few days ago about essentially the, um, the coverage of, of medical malpractice insurance in the relationship of collaborations and how that works with group policies and how that works with individual a PP policies. You search it, there's nothing like there.

That question is not answered on the internet. Actually, I sometimes joke that, uh. We have a problem that we Google things and we use chat GBT for things and we get our own answers. Like we get our own articles and it's kind of, you know, you're at the end of end of knowledge when that happens, we gotta write more.

The search brings up your articles. Yeah, yeah. Hey, congratulations. Being being the source. Yeah. I mean, that means you're on the edge and, yeah. And so, I mean, for example, as far as I know, there's still no article answering [00:37:00] the question about. Medical malpractice coverage for collaborations for physicians.

I mean, you'll get some vague articles kind of describing like, yeah, you should probably have it. Um, but there's like some very specific details that are important. Yeah. And in some cases, you know, it's relevant because it's not relevant. And I think that's the kind of stuff that people want to know. So, you know, we have a big queue of, uh, content to create.

Yeah. No. And yeah, congrat, congrats on being it, you, you are the source. So that's huge. That's huge. I think both CD and I are sort of weirdly obsessive about things. I think that's probably a shared characteristic. Um, we can get, I don't know, stuck in the details in a good way on a lot of stuff. In different ways too.

I think that that's kind of like interesting, like, I think it's like, again, like a really good balance. 'cause like the stuff that I freak out about is the stuff that Chris doesn't, um, and then like, you know, kinda like vice versa. And so it's like we're constantly kinda like balancing each other out in terms just to make sure like what we're [00:38:00] doing is whole.

Um, but yeah, I mean, again, like I think, you know, I think that the hardest part about this whole. This whole like in, in terms of like sales and marketing and building what we're doing now is like, it just doesn't exist. And so like nobody, like for the past couple months, it has just been holding everybody's hand and like nobody really understands this like free market nature of it.

And like that has been probably like my biggest challenge of like. How do you explain to a person, like you set your own price for the collaboration and like, we have data online, but like I can't give you an answer. Like I can't give you a number. Like you get to decide that and like, here's some factors you should think about.

You know what I mean? Like it's little things like that where people are just so not used to this. Yeah. But I think like it, I hate the word disruptor. I hate it in like the health tech industry, but like. I really do feel like we are [00:39:00] going to like, really turn this into something that is going to be, I think we, we, I will hope that we will see a lot more independent practice and I do hope that we see a lot more physicians giving this a shot and trying the collaborating side and seeing like how cool it can be to like, mentor and like expand access and like, you know, like ultimately like for me, like I really do think like this is gonna make it so much easier for people to get started.

Versus like that constant of like, oh, no, no, I need to spend a thousand dollars, then I need to get an attorney, and then I need to do this and I need to do that. Like every single time I get a question from a practitioner, I write it on like a log and it's like. All right. I guess I need to like research some EHRs.

'cause like, this is the question of the week and like, what can we do to make it easy for them on the eh r side? And like, at the end of the day, like we really just wanna build this like, massive ecosystem around people. So like, more people, you know. 'cause like, again, like I, I will say this in like the LA like.

The most un corny way [00:40:00] possible, but it's gonna come out and be corny. If it weren't for Chris, I wouldn't have done this. I would still be working a W2 job probably. I would still be miserable. I probably would've left the W2 job because I job hop a lot. Um, like I, I wouldn't have done it if there weren't like time and time again where like I wanted to kind of, sort of give up or I, I couldn't figure something out and he was like, no, no, I got it.

Or like, let's work through it or, or whatever. And I think like. Again, like when, when you have something around you that tries to make it easy for you, it does make all the difference in the world. Oh, that's awesome. That's awesome. And you know, getting to develop this own space, getting to develop leaders as doctors, you know, I shoot, I'm totally all for it, obviously, so.

Well cool. Cool. We're, um, getting into time. Um, last, you know, if you could impart just one mic drop. What, what would it be, Chris?

Oh, geez. Um, I know I'm putting you on the [00:41:00] spot.

Ah, anything, any like sub topic in there to look at my pan bags? Who knows? Yeah guys. Yeah. Um,

what's been like your favorite like. Like your most rewarding kind of like project or job so far or something like that my entire life. That's awesome. Yeah. That's the mic drop. There we go. We got, we got it. How many people could say that? Really? Like, yeah, I know a bunch of other people that like to say the converse, but yeah, that's, that's, that's awesome.

Yeah. What about it? I do wanna, I do wanna say too, like before this. Which is, I, I think it's like pure and like, very much in like Chris fashion. I didn't know any of this. Like I knew nothing. Like when we, when we started working together, it was like we're going like, I didn't know all of his [00:42:00] history of bicycle or Virta or the, you know, I think it's just, it's really funny, like how much I, I got to learn about Chris during.

Yeah. Yeah. No, I mean, I, I, I really enjoyed my time in the like, telemedicine, healthcare world. You know, I think a lot of people, I've been thinking about this a lot actually. I think a lot of people have been in it, people like me, I guess non non-clinician maybe who, you know, who have, uh, mission driven reasons for doing things.

I'm not saying clinicians, clinicians will too, but I'm just talking about this, this specific type of person, like person who gone into healthcare for kind of mission driven reasons and maybe isn't a clinician. Um, you know, it can be, it can beat you down over time. Like I think it can feel kind of like a cynical industry.

Um, like, kind of like everything is circling around and the chairs are being rearranged and the bad guys keep winning. Um, but at least the big guys keep winning. And, and then, you know, I've had moments of questioning [00:43:00] like, you know, should I just go back to like normal tech or just do something else? And.

You know, I, I keep recommitting to it. Um, I think what kind of keeps me going on it is

just the kind of infinite complexity aspect to it. Um, and, and I think it's also one of these things where, you know, change happens slow, then it happens really fast. I think there's going to be change that will happen. I think, you know, maybe we, you know, the people of this generation maybe, maybe we'll be here when it happens.

Maybe we won't. Um, but you know, someone's gonna be here and you know, so, um, I think it's good to keep, keep trying. And I think also there are areas of change. I [00:44:00] think a lot of this clinician entrepreneurship stuff is an area of change. I think just the move to telemedicine is an area of change. Just generally offering more options to people I think is like a net positive.

So there's, there, there's movement, and I think I, I'd love to see sort of more like big movement in the sense that like, you know, these like local, local monopolies and stuff charging way too much and taking advantage of the situation. Um. But yeah, I find it worth it. Um, if nothing else, just kind of being like a technical nerd, it's like a very technically complicated, nerdy problem to work on.

Um, and then add to that, that I think there's, there's these areas of, of impact. I, I guess I'm just, I, I feel like the, the things I say, sort of the reasons for it have gotten very much more muted over time. They, they probably sound a lot less, like big and grand of like, we're gonna change the world and, and all that, but.

I still think it's worth it. Um, and I still [00:45:00] find it enjoyable. Well, and that's how you change it. It's baby steps. Right. And it's small. Well, and I think too, like to, to just to, like you did change somebody's world from bicycle, like Verta did change people's world. Right? Like again, then like I'll go to the bicycle example.

'cause I think it's so like black and white, but like you were doing something that they couldn't have been done. And I think that to me is like. I think that's also why, like I pick healthcare because you really like, it doesn't matter. It doesn't matter how many things you sell or whatever you do at the end of the day.

Like you, you do kind of have that direct impact to that person and like nobody can take away that you're working on something that actually touches a person. Yeah. You know, let me add, I think, I think that bicycle school's a great example of just being in the right place at the right time, and I, I think that's like what a lot of change is about.

Like we were there when the pandemic started, when the regulation changed. And like we were able to, to jump on that. And so I guess oftentimes you don't know what that's gonna be, um, but you just keep doing cool stuff [00:46:00] and being like obsessively focused on what people want and you know, eventually the kind of important thing will happen that will drive the impact.

That's awesome. That's awesome. Well, cool. Thank you for coming on and, you know, imparting all this knowledge, thank you for allowing us to get to know you. Phoebe knows you a lot better now too, um, as a person in business partner. And, um, yeah, check out the show notes. Um, check out the show notes about single aim, um, drop, uh, an email to Phoebe myself or info@telemedicinetalks.com to get in contact with us.

Um, Chris, if you wanna drop your contact too, we'll talk about that later. Um, we need doctors. We need doctors at single aim. Click on the link. It'll, it'll be there. So you, you, you got one more while we were talking this, this guy. Nice. [00:47:00] So, alright, well thank you guys so much and we'll catch y'all next time on telemedicine talk.

Right. See ya. All right. Stop. That was fine. Yeah.