Tag Archives: Entrepreneur

Scaling Your Health Tech Business to $100 Million, Featuring Sofia Guerra of Bessemer Venture Partners



On our episode today we are getting down into the details, deep the weeds, in order to understand what it takes to scale a healthcare business to $100M.

For that wisdom we turned to Sofia Guerra, an investor at Bessemer Venture Partners. We recently had her on our Health Transformer University Masterclass series to share top takeaways from a recent benchmarks report published by her firm. She distilled their very detailed work into five key takeaways and then hung around to answer questions from our audience of StartUp Health founders.

In this session, which was hosted by Jamey Edwards, Chief Platform Officer here at StartUp Health, Sofia gets into all the critical operational, financial, and clinical performance metrics that health tech companies need to care about if they’re going to thrive and scale.

For the purpose of this podcast, we’ll drop right into the middle of the conversation between Jamey and Sofia, focusing on her advice for founders.

Enjoy!


FundersBecome a Health Moonshot Champion
Want more content like this? You can subscribe to the podcast as well as other health innovation updates at startuphealth.com/content.
Sign up for StartUp Health Insider™ to get funding insights, news, and special updates delivered to your inbox.

Looking to break down health barriers? If you’re an entrepreneur or investor, contact us to learn how you can join our Health Equity Moonshot.
Passionate about Type 1 diabetes? If you’re an entrepreneur or investor, contact us to learn how you can join our T1D Moonshot.


How Avanlee Care Is Teaming Up with Retailers to Address the Caregiver Crisis



Our podcast guest this week is Avanlee Christine, CEO and Co-founder of Avanlee Care, a company that joined StartUp Health in 2022. A few years ago Avanlee found herself helping to coordinate care for her grandmother. Everyone in the family wanted to help, but she lived far away, and there just wasn’t a good way to check in on her health and be the kind of support that Avanlee and her family wanted to be.

As many entrepreneurs do, Avanlee said to herself: There must be a better way. So She raised some funds (that’s a story in itself), built a team, and set out to design a platform that eases the burden on unpaid caregivers. And she did all while having her first child.

Listen in as she explains the details of the Avanlee Care product as it stands today and about how she’s finding eager partners in some of the country’s largest retailers and employers. Turns out easing the caregiver burden isn’t just a moral good, it’s also good for a company’s bottom line.


FundersBecome a Health Moonshot Champion
Want more content like this? You can subscribe to the podcast as well as other health innovation updates at startuphealth.com/content.
Sign up for StartUp Health Insider™ to get funding insights, news, and special updates delivered to your inbox.

Looking to break down health barriers? If you’re an entrepreneur or investor, contact us to learn how you can join our Health Equity Moonshot.
Passionate about Type 1 diabetes? If you’re an entrepreneur or investor, contact us to learn how you can join our T1D Moonshot.

 


Two Top Health Investors Share Their 2023 Tips for Founders



Whether they like it or not – and they probably don’t – every health tech founder needs to think about money. How much they need, and how to get it. For many founders, raising outside funds becomes a whole new full time job that they have to take on. This year, funding in the sector has dipped sharply, making that job even harder and more stressful.

On our podcast this week, we hear from the other side of the table. We sat down with the heads of two major health tech investment firms and got their advice for health innovation entrepreneurs in 2023.

First up is Lee Shapiro, managing partner at 7wireVentures and long-time collaborator with StartUp Health. Shapiro is a luminary in digital health investing so we asked him for his macro view of the industry and got a few practical tips for founders raising funds today.

Then we hear from Shawn Ellis, managing partner at Distributed Ventures, a $100M fund that invests in Seed and Series A deals and has a strong health tech focus. In our chat Ellis broke down where his firm has found success recently and exactly what he looks for in a pitch.


FundersBecome a Health Moonshot Champion
Want more content like this? You can subscribe to the podcast as well as other health innovation updates at startuphealth.com/content.
Sign up for StartUp Health Insider™ to get funding insights, news, and special updates delivered to your inbox.

Looking to break down health barriers? If you’re an entrepreneur or investor, contact us to learn how you can join our Health Equity Moonshot.
Passionate about Type 1 diabetes? If you’re an entrepreneur or investor, contact us to learn how you can join our T1D Moonshot.


Maximizing Your Impact: Building and Leading a Strategic Board



Our guest this week is Matt Blumberg, CEO and Co-founder at Bolster. He’s the author of the books “Startup CEO,” “Startup CXO,” and most recently “Startup Boards.”

That last one was why we wanted to have him in for a special masterclass with the founders from the StartUp Health community. As you’ll hear, Blumberg has developed a detailed strategy for maximizing your startup’s board. It’s a time-tested framework for making sure your board is an asset to your business not a tax.

Drawing on his own experiences as a CEO and board member, Matt discusses the importance of diversity in leadership and decision-making and provides practical tips and strategies for building a board that represents the full range of perspectives and experiences of your stakeholders. As a startup leader looking to build or scale your board, this chat will provide valuable insights and actionable advice to help you grow.

This conversation was held in front of a live audience of entrepreneurs, so you’ll get to hear some very practical questions on board management during our Q&A.


FundersBecome a Health Moonshot Champion
Want more content like this? You can subscribe to the podcast as well as other health innovation updates at startuphealth.com/content.
Sign up for StartUp Health Insider™ to get funding insights, news, and special updates delivered to your inbox.

Looking to break down health barriers? If you’re an entrepreneur or investor, contact us to learn how you can join our Health Equity Moonshot.
Passionate about Type 1 diabetes? If you’re an entrepreneur or investor, contact us to learn how you can join our T1D Moonshot.


How Health Innovation Startups Can Partner with Anthem



In health innovation, you can have the most amazing idea and a rock-solid business plan, but in order to scale, you might still need to find the right enterprise partner. Topping this list for many entrepreneurs is Anthem, which serves 40 million people and is ranked #57 on the Fortune 500 list. It’s safe to say that if your startup can get distribution through this network, it’s going to put you on a whole new trajectory.

In order to find out how Anthem works with startups, we invited Omid Toloui, Anthem’s Vice President of Innovation, to join us for a chat. Anthem has had a range of programs in recent years aimed at collaborating with nimble, forward-thinking startups, like their Innovation Studio in Atlanta and their Digital Incubator Program. But we wanted Omid to pull back the curtain on exactly how Anthem thinks about innovation, and how startups can partner with them.

This StartUp Health NOW episode was excerpted from a Fireside Chat held in front of a live audience of Health Transformers from the StartUp Health portfolio. Enjoy.


Entrepreneurs: How to get investment from StartUp Health startuphealth.com

Investors: How to invest in StartUp Health Moonshots healthmoonshots.com
Want more content like this? You can subscribe to the podcast as well as other health innovation updates at startuphealth.com/content.
Sign up for StartUp Health Insider™ to get funding insights, news, and special updates delivered to your inbox.


Does Teladoc’s Stock Drop Matter? Jamey Edwards on Achieving Health Moonshots in the Face of Rocky Public Markets



This week’s episode of StartUp Health NOW is a conversation with Jamey Edwards, Chief Operating Officer at StartUp Health. Jamey has been working in the telemedicine space for more than a decade, and his last company, Cloudbreak, went public via SPAC last year. So when we saw the headlines that Teladoc’s stock dropped 40% – alongside other dips in the telemedicine public market – we called him up for a dose of perspective. In this conversation with host Logan Plaster, Edwards breaks down the news from Wall Street and gives startups some health moonshot wisdom. Bottom line: stay focused on the mission because improving global health is a marathon, not a sprint.


Entrepreneurs: How to get investment from StartUp Health startuphealth.com

Investors: How to invest in StartUp Health Moonshots healthmoonshots.com
Want more content like this? You can subscribe to the podcast as well as other health innovation updates at startuphealth.com/content.
Sign up for StartUp Health Insider™ to get funding insights, news, and special updates delivered to your inbox.

 


How to Become a More Conscious Leader With Diana Chapman



Today we’re talking about conscious leadership. What is conscious leadership? It has to do with the process of positive change within your team or organization. Now, you may wonder how do you do that and why it’s so important when investing in innovative health startups. That’s precisely what we learn today from our guest, Diana Chapman, the author of The 15 Commitments of Conscious Leadership: A New Paradigm for Sustainable Success. The pages in her book contain a comprehensive road map to guide you to shift from fear-based to trust-based leadership. And once you learn and start practicing conscious leadership  you’ll get results in the form of more energy, clarity, focus and healthier relationships. This interactive workshop was hosted by StartUp Health’s CEO & Co-founder Steven Krein, in front of a live audience of founders from the StartUp Health portfolio.

Entrepreneurs: How to get investment from StartUp Health startuphealth.com

Investors: How to invest in StartUp Health Moonshots healthmoonshots.com
Want more content like this? You can subscribe to the podcast as well as other health innovation updates at startuphealth.com/content.
Sign up for StartUp Health Insider™ to get funding insights, news, and special updates delivered to your inbox.


Achieving Health Moonshots w/ Vinod Khosla



Last month, Vinod Khosla, founder of Khosla Ventures, came back for part II of his Fireside Chat where he joined our co-founder, Unity Stoakes, to talk about achieving Health Moonshots, how COVID opened more doors to innovation and experimentation, finding societal impact without expertise, and identifying your long-term and basecamp vision. Listen to part I here.

Entrepreneurs: How to get investment from StartUp Health startuphealth.com

Investors: How to invest in StartUp Health Moonshots healthmoonshots.com
Want more content like this? You can subscribe to the podcast as well as other health innovation updates at startuphealth.com/content.
Sign up for StartUp Health Insider™ to get funding insights, news, and special updates delivered to your inbox.

 


Safi Bahcall on Achieving Health ‘Loonshots’



Bestselling author Safi Bahcall, a physicist by training and the former CEO of Synta Pharmaceuticals, believes that a key to achieving transformative ‘loonshots’ lies in asking better questions. During a recent StartUp Health Fireside Chat, he spoke candidly on the value of getting curious – particularly about our failures – and how organizations can nurture game-changing ideas from within.

Entrepreneurs: How to get investment from StartUp Health startuphealth.com
Investors: How to invest in StartUp Health Moonshots healthmoonshots.com
Want more content like this? You can subscribe to the podcast as well as other health innovation updates at startuphealth.com/content.
Sign up for StartUp Health Insider™ to get funding insights, news, and special updates delivered to your inbox.


Vinod Khosla: Investing in the Future of Healthcare & Moonshot Thinking



The global pandemic ushered in a new era of health innovation. StartUp Health founders Steven Krein and Unity Stoakes sat down for an interactive Fireside Chat with Vinod Khosla of Khosla Ventures to discuss the future of health innovation in a post-pandemic world, why moonshot thinking is more important than ever, and to dig deep into topics like the power of mindset and collaboration.

Entrepreneurs: How to get investment from StartUp Health startuphealth.com
Investors: How to invest in StartUp Health Moonshots healthmoonshots.com

Want more content like this? You can subscribe to the podcast as well as other health innovation updates at startuphealth.com/content. Sign up for StartUp Health Insider™ to get funding insights, news, and special updates delivered to your inbox.