Jacob Lapera, Author at Business RadioX ® Page

Dana Weeks With MedTrans Go

July 14, 2022 by Jacob Lapera

Tech Talk

Dana Weeks With MedTrans Go

00:00 /

This episode is brought to you in part by our Co-Sponsor Trevelino/Keller

Dana Weeks is the Chief Executive Officer and co-founder of MedTrans Go, a healthcare technology start-up based in Atlanta, GA. Prior to joining MedTrans Go, Ms. Weeks co-founded the Black Angel Tech Foundation, created to support and increase the number of underrepresented minorities in technology, and served in her role as President from April 2016 to September 2019. Ms. Weeks has also held leadership positions at AT&T, Pfizer, and in several innovative entrepreneurial ventures.

Ms. Weeks is a member of the Board of Directors of Blue Owl Capital, a member of the Board of Trustees of The Westminster Schools of Atlanta, the Treasurer of the Atlanta Chapter of Jack & Jill, an advisory board member of Stride: Win Your Way, and a Board Member for the Alliance Theater of Atlanta. She also serves on several Task Forces and Committees at both Stanford and Columbia Business School, including serving as a co-chair of the Stanford LEAD Council, a member of the Stanford Humanities & Sciences Council, and a founding member of the Women’s Circle at Columbia Business School. Ms. Weeks earned a B.A. with Honors from Stanford University and an MBA from Columbia Business School.

This transcript is machine transcribed by Sonix

TRANSCRIPT

Intro: [00:00:07] Coming to you live from Atlanta, Georgia. It’s time for another episode of Tech Talk with your host, Joey Klein.

Joey Kline: [00:00:16] Welcome, everyone. All right. We have a health care I.T. episode of Tech Talk today. We’re going to be chatting with Dana Weeks, the CEO of MedTrans Go. Dana, how are you today?

Dana Weeks: [00:00:26] I’m doing well, thank you.

Joey Kline: [00:00:27] Excellent. Okay. Well, you know, normally we have two or three guests on this show, but we have a very special show where we have you all to ourselves. So we are totally focused on med trends. Go. We’ll get to deep probing questions later on. But just for someone who’s just tuning in and wants a sense of what is med trends go high level. What is the company do? What is your mission?

Dana Weeks: [00:00:53] So just on a high level med trends go is solving the problem of cancellations in health care by providing a technology platform that helps doctors, health care providers and others providing health care services to a range of options, including transportation and interpretation, and the other reasons why cancellations happen.

Joey Kline: [00:01:15] Okay. And so let’s look, I think we’re all familiar with we’ve all canceled doctor’s appointments before. And I think that some people might be listening to saying, well, you know, is it really that big of a deal if I, you know, move my internist checkup or whatever it might be? So help us understand what type of cancellations we’re worried about, why it affects doctors and hospital systems and why it affects outcomes for patients as well.

Dana Weeks: [00:01:42] So I mean, it affects both the patients, but also the health care community. It’s a very disruptive situation when health care providers, if you’re looking at, for example, my co-founder who is an orthopedic surgeon and he dealt with cancellations and he actually still deals with cancellations where people are not able to get to surgeries or procedures. And ultimately it disrupts the flow, makes it hard for surgery centers and other facilities to do what they need to do. So in addition to having to reschedule potentially or in many cases, people don’t come back and actually get their the care that they need. And so the challenge to health care providers is that especially during these times, you want to be able to provide the care to patients and in the time that they need him. And if you then look at the most vulnerable patients, many who are, for example, on dialysis or those that need maternal care, really the the challenge becomes not only do they not get to appointments, that these could be life saving and or life altering situations if you don’t get to your appointments.

Joey Kline: [00:03:07] Okay. So, so we’re talking about a population. So so let’s let’s look at it from the surgery center, right. If you have a surgery scheduled, obviously, that surgery center has a certain number of staff they’ve allocated. They have reserved that spot for several hours. It’s not like you can easily fill it like someone waiting for a haircut. And so if someone doesn’t show up, that is simply lost time and loss of revenue, then you’ve got the person that hasn’t showed up. And if they reschedule, well, the schedule’s probably packed. They’re going to have to wait. Situation might get worse. Or if they don’t, if they don’t have reliable means of transportation, that’s just more time for whatever issue is occurring to fester, I’m assuming.

Dana Weeks: [00:03:50] Yeah, I mean, that is exactly the case. And in many cases you really should be able to get the health care you need when you need it. And if it is a solvable thing, like a transportation or other access issues or not being able to understand your doctor or health care worker, which is required by law, these are things that we should be able to easily access. And the great thing about our platform, it’s not just getting access to a car ride to get to an appointment. So potentially just a sedan ride if you just need to get in and out. But if, for example, you need access through a wheelchair enabled car or a stretcher or we have interpretation in over 100 languages, this allows the health care facilities to have everything at their disposal in one place that can adapt to any needs of patients and patient care. And the additional thing that has been a challenge for many patients are patients that are living in rural areas that are coming into urban areas to get care because they really don’t have access to those health care providers in their local community. And so the fact that they are outside of these urban centers or outside of a close proximity makes it even more challenging. If their transportation is not accessible to them and they often do not go back and just reschedule.

Joey Kline: [00:05:29] That’s that’s right. And I guess, you know, for some listening to this and I think certainly for those sitting across this table, we can sometimes take for granted the flexibility of life that we have and those around us friends, family, peer, group, whatever might be that can help us to an employment if we actually needed it. There are plenty of people who do not have a support network that can easily take them. There are plenty of people who cannot get the time off to do it. And like you said, you know, the rural issue of let’s say that you live in Vidalia, Georgia. Right. And you just do not have the specialty you need. You have to come in to Emory Midtown. That is I mean, that’s basically planning an out of town trip. That’s not just, you know, down the street, you know, easy sort of trek.

Dana Weeks: [00:06:16] Yeah. And even if you had a friend or family who could could take you, potentially, that’s a procedure that you need to do either multiple times or that you need to stay overnight. And folks don’t necessarily have that flexibility to be able to to do that here in Georgia. It’s it’s specifically it’s been a real challenge. We we ranked 40th in the United States when it comes to. Adequate distribution of doctors by specialty and geographic location. So increasingly, many patients who are who are not in reach of of doctors and facilities that can help them get that care.

Joey Kline: [00:06:58] Well, and it seems like, you know, we have to say we have we have an urban rural divide in this country. And there’s plenty of places that we’re not going to talk about on this podcast. But, you know, let’s let’s think about it. You could essentially transplant that situation onto any state. Right? You know, at the end of the day, yes, states are different, but most of them look like 1 to 3, maybe large metropolitan centers and then a bunch of areas spread out. And increasingly, if you’re a talented physician, are you going to go for the big city job or the small rural community that might be shrinking? And so in a world in which we have rural communities which either are staying the same or declining, then how do you get people access to the right health care they need? So I obviously totally get why this is needed. Let’s back up a little bit and talk about how did you discover that this was a problem and that you were the one to solve it?

Dana Weeks: [00:08:00] Well, I think it’s a twofold. So my co-founder, as I mentioned, is a board certified orthopedic surgeon, not only cares to do his orthopedic practice in a in a great way, he cares a lot about the patients. And about six years ago, he had two back to back surgeries canceled in one day. And in one instance, a neighbor had canceled at the last minute the ride that they were going to give. And and the other Spanish interpreter just didn’t show up. And he really didn’t have a one location that he could go to to solve these cancellation issues. And he and I discussed it and we looked into it and we realized this actually a huge challenge in the United States with cancellations in health care. As I’ve said many times in any other industry, 30 to 40% cancellation rates would not is that would not hold.

Joey Kline: [00:09:04] Well, 30 to 40%. Yes, that’s.

Dana Weeks: [00:09:07] Incredible. You know, and depending on where you are, the average is around 30%. And this is an over $150 Billion a year is lost every year on cancellations. And so for him on that particular day, these were high expensive surgeries and it was over 100,000 lost. When you take into account all of the staff that were there that were sitting idle, you were you’re taking into account the doctor’s time not being able to do that surgery. And then, of course, you know, other people could have used that time as well. Sure. And for what he saw and what we see as a majority of this is that these are solvable issues we can we can solve for the cancellation problems of transportation. We can solve for interpretation. And so we set out to build that very platform for health care providers to be able to get that on demand solution with the the safety and security of safe, reliable and predictable services.

Joey Kline: [00:10:11] Okay. All right. So there’s we have an aha moment from a real life example and the journey begins. What is your value? A serial entrepreneur? Are you a health care nut? What is your background that you said? You know what, I’m going to solve this. I’m going to dedicate myself to solving this.

Dana Weeks: [00:10:30] Well, for me specifically, yes, I am a health care nut. I am a technology nut, and I am a serial entrepreneur. I’ve done a number of different ventures where I have, I think from my young age, have looked at situations and think there are solutions to things when when I when I’m encountered with a problem, and especially when it comes to technology. And I think the deeper additional story that I have is my mom about 12 years ago now, was diagnosed with breast cancer and she needed a series of radiation and then chemotherapy appointments. But she lived in New York. I live in Georgia. This is one of those luxuries that I understood that I had where I could go up and help get her to appointments. And I had other family members who could assist her and go with her to be able to do that. And fortunately, now she’s cancer free. And but, you know, just going in and going through that process and understanding the vulnerability, I realized how important just being able to have some. That you can trust that is reliable, that can get you to and from appointments, whether or not your family members are there or are not able to get there. And, you know, it just was one of those real world experiences that matched my background and desire to kind of explore and create and solve for health care and technology problems.

Joey Kline: [00:12:12] Yeah, I mean, you know, some of the best companies are born of the seemingly well, that’s obviously not not a mundane experience. But I think you get these these these daily things that we sometimes don’t connect to larger problems or events. And he’d do a little bit of digging and you say, oh my God, how is no one solved this before? And that’s where great companies are born from.

Dana Weeks: [00:12:36] Yeah. And you know, I mean, I think in some senses we’ve seen solutions in in some of the the verticals. So you’ve seen some transportation solutions, you’ve seen some interpretation solutions. But this really combines all of them into one. And we really believe, because we have a health care DNA, that we’ve built a better mousetrap, that we’ve been able to create a very easy to use solution that allows those who are in health care an easy access to a platform that makes sense, that does the billing and invoicing, does the types of fulfills the needs of these customers. And our customers that we have believe this to be true as well. And that’s why we’re growing.

Joey Kline: [00:13:26] And so is your typical customer a regional hospital? Is it a kind of local multi office practice? Is it all across the board?

Dana Weeks: [00:13:37] It really is all across the board. And in some senses, we have now gotten to the stage of the business where we’re really able to focus on some of these industries and areas that are of most need surgical practices and facilities, hospitals. We’re starting to look into payer systems and health insurance companies, but the opportunities are so great if you’re looking at the demographics, the the needs, anything from assisted living care to another area that we really focus in is personal injury and worker’s comp and the ability to really solve for with this network of transportation interpretation providers the cancellation problems for many and it doesn’t matter if you’re a large hospital or a one or two person practice, this gives you that access, the ability to have the top interpretation and transportation providers that are vetted, HIPAA compliant and has that safety and reliability that really you have to be able to have for your patients. And ultimately, the patients want that as well.

Joey Kline: [00:14:56] So let’s let’s talk about the vetting. That’s an interesting topic, right? Because these are you know, this is not just someone signing up to be an Uber X driver. Right. And so how do you go and find the crop of folks, interpretation or transportation that are going to be right for this? What sort of checks do you undergo to make sure that they’re the right partners?

Dana Weeks: [00:15:17] So on the transportation side, we have a ten point certification that they require from everything from background checks to the HIPAA compliance to just a minimum age of of those drivers. And then we continue to do compliance so that we ensure that they have that as well as insurance requirements. And that’s for mainly non emergency medical transportation providers. We realize it’s a fragmented market and they fulfill a need, especially when it comes to wheelchair and stretcher where you can you don’t necessarily need an ambulance, but you definitely don’t need a a taxi that will drop you off at the curb or down the down the street. Sure. However, we want to be able to provide all different options. And so we have a partnership with Lyft where we also for if you only really need a curb to curb solution, that we have access to those as well. But it allows our platform allows you to be matched with the right type of service.

Joey Kline: [00:16:30] That’s very cool. So so let’s I’m curious about the economics. Is this a SAS license where someone’s paying a month a a health care system or doctors? A monthly fee to use it. Is this something where sort of per ride or per transportation session, for lack of a better term, you’re taking a piece of the fee. How does that work?

Dana Weeks: [00:16:51] Yeah, the revenue model is really transactional, although we do have a subscription based so that you are able to access our platform. But that subscription is way the fee is waived if you reach a certain threshold of transactions.

Joey Kline: [00:17:07] Okay. Okay. So you’re you’re going to let’s let’s take your orthopedic surgeon example, right. Or orthopedic surgery center there slice. There’s four offices in a metro area. And as long as they can provide the requisite volume of transactions, essentially you’re making enough off of that that the license fee from them isn’t really necessary. And of course, from their mind, they’re saving all this money in wasted no shows.

Dana Weeks: [00:17:38] Yeah, absolutely. And really, the other part about our platform is we we developed a video interpretation platform to be able to provide American sign language interpretation to our clients who needed it. And it was in the middle of March of 2020 that we were launching it. And the timing from a health care perspective couldn’t have been better, as you know, as that time was becoming one where all these facilities were closing. Telemedicine was becoming increasingly used and utilized overnight. And so in some senses, it really boosted the health care industry’s comfort with using technology solutions and then finding that the technology solutions in some senses can complement what they are doing in person, but also be a very viable option. And so having a telemedicine platform that allows for an interpreter to also be on there in this number of languages that you need, it’s turned out to be a really great access point that people wanted to be able to have the subscription model just to have that platform. If there is a closure for a week, if potentially a patient gets sick with COVID. And so you have to switch that online. And then there’s a real model where many follow up visits don’t necessarily need to be in person. And so this allows for our customers to not necessarily have to invest in another telemedicine platform if their usage of telemedicine is not that great and that they can kind of complement that.

Joey Kline: [00:19:26] So so that’s an interesting, albeit not entirely unexpected with two years of hindsight development, I have I have a health care client and obviously wasn’t planned this way. Right. But I mean, COVID just catapulted their business like they could have never imagined. I would guess that as an entrepreneur with a young company that at the beginning stages it was a bit scary. But, you know, talk to me about how the last two years have been for your company. Kind of once you got your sea legs under you has I’m assuming that it’s been pretty decent growth for the past couple of years.

Dana Weeks: [00:20:02] Yes. I mean, in in many ways, COVID validated the need for health care providers to understand the impact of cancellations. And more so, they’re realizing if, for example, their facility had been shut for a long time, then every single person when they’re actually opening, every single patient was more critical than ever. And so they couldn’t just ignore cancellations. And I think it was one of those stopping moments similar to what Dr. Abagnale had, which was he he had these back to back surgeries canceled where it was happening maybe once each day or something. But when it was that long period of time and these really complex surgeries, then all of a sudden he was like, wait a second, right? How is this really impacting my business? And a similar thing happened, I think, to health care. At the same time, the technology regulations, the technology usage became more prevalent within health care. And so those two things combined really made our solution. One that was here for the times and access to health care. A lot of the issues of cancellations, the reasons for these cancellations were were growing and increasing and we were getting there. But this really catapulted the need in in a way that I think is makes me feel good, because if we can address these issues, we can look at long term. Societal challenges of health disparities and others that in some senses seems daunting. And if we can use this as one particular way that we can solve for and get better care, better solutions for all, then it it’s a win win all around.

Joey Kline: [00:22:03] It does really seem like you’re just scratching the surface here. And obviously, at this stage of your company, it’s it’s important to be focused, you know. You know, lest you sort of get distracted by so many shiny things out there that you’re, you know, nothing to no one. But, you know, I’m curious about the go to market strategy at this point. Has this been doctor a referral doctor network? Has this been an outbound sales team? What is the next 12 to 24 months look like from a growth perspective? Both, you know, pulling people in and kind of pushing out.

Dana Weeks: [00:22:41] So we really have seen how many opportunities there are. And so we’re really looking at data and looking at especially our presence here in the Southeast and Georgia to find those right models and to look at the areas to go to first. And, you know, we’ve we’ve discovered a number of those areas and really want to focus on them here in Georgia and then replicate it. I mean, we’re right now we’re in 11 states, but our strong presence and growth in terms of our go to market strategy is here in the southeast because we can expand in different types of surgical facilities. So to your to your question, we have a sales team. We actually have a strong customer success team. And a lot of that is sort of matching not only do we want to have the sales to to get agreements in place, but to actually have them use us, especially given that it’s a transactional model. And I think that the opportunities are are growing and we get a lot of referrals even from our current customers. And that has been another really great advantage.

Joey Kline: [00:23:59] Yeah. From a geographic standpoint, I mean again, it’s just the universe is so wide. Are you prioritizing going really deep into the states in which you are operating or at this point, it’s let’s let’s get a toehold in as many states as possible and then we can kind of dig in, you know, past the surface from there.

Dana Weeks: [00:24:21] We really have have remained true to that focused approach. And but we have been able to explore new opportunities because we have customers who have a strong presence here in Georgia that are national. And they say, okay, well, we love what we’re doing here with you in Georgia. Can you set up a network in Massachusetts? Can you set up a network in Colorado? And we’ve been able to be successful in that. But one of the exciting parts about having a double sided marketplace in having to find matching service providers of transporters and interpreters to those clients, is that it’s a it’s kind of a lever. It’s a balancing act. So you have the demand, then you have the supply, and then once you have the supply, you want to find more demand. So in many ways, it’s it’s a great way to continue to feed back into what you have. And so that’s where having that focused approach is good so that we if we’ve built up our network of transporters in the Houston area, for example, then we are now looking at getting more clients in that area because it will feed onto each other.

Joey Kline: [00:25:43] I have always been fascinated by companies that have this unique marketing. You can call it a challenge or an opportunity depending upon your mindset where you’re sort of B-to-B to see you. Your product is touching both a business and a consumer. And in addition to that, you, of course, have a network effect that you have to be concerned with. And finding that equilibrium is and there’s no question here, it’s more just it is a very complicated balance and challenge. And I imagine that it is, you know, intellectually rigorous as well as somewhat. You know, it’s hard it’s hard to get right.

Dana Weeks: [00:26:22] I imagine it’s hard to get right. But when we’re talking about health care, it’s a lot easier. And I and my background is in marketing and in management. So in some senses this is for me really fun. Yeah. Because you have the opportunity to impact not only the health care community, but you have the opportunity to impact and disrupt the non-emergency medical transportation market. You have the opportunity to disrupt interpretation and the interpretation market. And the need is so there and so being able to connect those who need those services, those who need the business with the right patients, the right customers, it’s a win win for everybody.

Joey Kline: [00:27:11] So if if you came back here in 12 months and we were to sit down and say what what has happened in the last 12 months, what has changed with that Transco? What are the top couple of whatever? Choose one, two, three, everybody you want that you want to be able to say you have accomplished product funding team, whatever it might be in the next 12 months.

Dana Weeks: [00:27:34] Well, in the next 12 months, we are looking to go bigger and scale more. And a lot of that has to do with some of the customers that are in our pipeline. We are about to close a big hospital deal and we will be looking at and talking to a couple of insurance companies and payer systems. And the ability to adapt our technology to these larger customers is in the pipeline. We have a number of compliance upgrades to compliance, others that will make our platform easily plugged into some of the larger systems. And we see that as tremendous opportunity to not just continue to see the growth that we’re seeing, but really accelerate that growth and and seize upon a real need. And in talking to those that were that are in our pipeline, they they see how our product can really help them reduce costs, increase revenue, help provide better patient care, help in terms of hospitals, really make the the process more efficient.

Joey Kline: [00:28:54] Yeah. I mean, as I’m thinking about this, okay, so I’ve heard of transportation matters is not the right term, but I’ve heard of, you know, you know, companies that can help augment transportation. Right. I’ve heard of companies that can do some interpretation work. I’ve never heard of a company before that really focuses on no shows, is there I mean, is there really anything out there, one that focuses as much on cancellations and two, combines all of these things together?

Dana Weeks: [00:29:25] I don’t know. One that combines all of these things together. Yeah, but there are definitely folks who are looking at no shows and in a number of different ways, I mean, there are other ways that to to look at it. But transportation and interpretation are the two. Number one, reasons why cancellations in health care happen. Over 54% of cancellations are due to those two reasons. And so that’s why we focus on them. And in many ways, people who are not necessarily in health care, they’re like, well, that’s an interesting marriage. Why would you have interpretation and transportation? They seem so dissimilar, however, for a health care provider that are increasingly taxed, burdened, busy, tired with potential staff transitions, they really need a an all encompassing solution that doesn’t matter what the patient is, the cause of that cancellation, we have an easy solution that’s all combined into one.

Joey Kline: [00:30:24] Well, and I imagine that there is a decent. Okay, so if you if you take the whole pie of cancellations right there is I’m going to guess some significant minority for whom both the translation as well as transportation are acute issues. Right. You’ve got some folks that you know, it’s an either or but you know, I imagine the population that you see that is vulnerable to this sort of thing. There’s going to be a decent number of folks in there that need both of those and more.

Dana Weeks: [00:30:55] I mean, I, I totally agree. And, you know, when it comes to health care, you really want that trust factor. You really want to be able to get there, understand your customer, I mean, understand your health care provider, and then trust that you can get home safely and reliable reliably. And so having a network that has done. That has been and done the vetting for you really does help the patient primarily, but also those health care providers provide better care and better solve the the more the bigger challenges of running a practice in today’s world.

Joey Kline: [00:31:40] That is all super exciting, challenging, but a very good challenge. So anyone listening that has this has piqued their interest. They want to learn more. How can they get in touch with you or and or learn more about med trends? Go.

Dana Weeks: [00:31:54] So you can find us on the web at med trends. Go Med Trans Geo or geo and or you can call us at 400 4826 7300 and we’re excited to provide more information, connect you with someone on the team. And, you know, we do get a lot of referrals, sometimes patients and you know, again, we are right now a business to business operation, but the patients are really the ultimate end user. And so if patients also hear about this, too, it makes a lot of sense. And, you know, we want them to be asking their health care providers as well how they can partner with med trends. Go.

Joey Kline: [00:32:46] That’s great. Well, Dana Weeks, CEO of Med Transco, solving health care, one cancellation at a time. Thank you so much for coming.

Dana Weeks: [00:32:54] Thank you so much. Nice talking to you.

Dr. Pinkey Patel With SnapBack

July 14, 2022 by Jacob Lapera

Startup Showdown Podcast

Dr. Pinkey Patel With SnapBack

00:00 /

Dr. Pinkey Patel, CEO/Founder at SnapBack

Dr. Pinkey Patel, a mama and clinical pharmacist who is also a certified NASM personal trainer, specializes in pre/post natal corrective exercise. Dr. Patel first hand experienced the gap in women’s healthcare and the lack of reliable, credible resources.

From learning how to establish a business from scratch in 2019 to developing a consultancy, and building out an app, Dr. Patel has previously juggled working full-time as a pharmacist, being a mother of two, being pregnant and successfully bringing a product to market. When you’re doing something as visceral and life-altering as growing a human, the resources you receive during and afterwards should reflect that magnitude, they should be as thoroughly created, as seriously considered as the life we create.

Connect with Dr. Pinkey on LinkedIn and Twitter and follow SnapBack on Facebook.

What You’ll Learn In This Episode

The greatest challenge in building the business
Things people don’t know about building a business from scratch
Work-life balance

This transcript is machine transcribed by Sonix

TRANSCRIPT

Intro: [00:00:04] We’ll come back to the Startup Showdown podcast, where we discuss pitching, funding and scaling startups. Join us as we interview winners, mentors and judges of the monthly $120,000 pitch competition powered by Panoramic Ventures. We also discuss the latest updates in software Web three, health care, tech, fintech and more. Now sit tight as we interview this week’s guest and their journey through entrepreneurship.

Lee Kantor: [00:00:38] Lee Kantor are here. Another episode of Startup Showdown Radio. And this is going to be a good one. But before we get started, it’s important to recognize our sponsor Panoramic Ventures. Without them, we couldn’t be sharing these important stories. Today on Startup Showdown, we have Dr. Pinkey Patel and she’s with the snapback. Welcome.

Dr. Pinkey Patel: [00:00:58] Thank you for having me.

Lee Kantor: [00:01:00] I’m so excited to learn what you’re up to. Tell us about the snapback. How you sovereign folks.

Dr. Pinkey Patel: [00:01:06] Yeah. So I’m a clinical pharmacist, but I’m also a pre and post-natal certified trainer and a personal trainer. And I always say that the three of these things collided to make my third baby. I have two other children. And, you know, pregnancy always has these ample resources. It’s often viewed as this beautiful experience. But postpartum is pretty isolating. I think a lot of us moms agree and it doesn’t come with a manual. So the snapback app, currently, it is an all in one postpartum assistant and it provides evidence based resources in a community for women.

Lee Kantor: [00:01:42] So was this something that kind of developed with you personally? You wish there was this and then you created it?

Dr. Pinkey Patel: [00:01:48] Absolutely. I always joke and say that I could do organic chemistry in my sleep five times, but some business was something that I was never planning to go into. However, my experience and post-partum myself and validating it among others, compelled me to create a solution for every mother after me.

Lee Kantor: [00:02:07] So now, were you working like at a in a traditional job, in a traditional kind of practice?

Dr. Pinkey Patel: [00:02:13] Yeah. So I actually worked as a clinical pharmacist up until last year, and I was working full time while I was pregnant and had a toddler that was two years old at the time while I was building the community and the app that exists at this time. So I just I did both essentially until last year when I left pharmacy completely. But yes, I was a clinical pharmacist in the typical setting.

Lee Kantor: [00:02:40] Can you share a little bit about the decision making process you went through in order to take the leap into being an entrepreneur?

Dr. Pinkey Patel: [00:02:47] It was the most difficult decision that I could have ever made. So. My parents are immigrants. They came from India with $7. And, you know, the whole the American dream is and was a thing. And so I was the first in my family to graduate and only graduate, but get a doctorate by the age of 23. And so, you know, being having parents that aim to wish that I had the life that they that they wish that they had themselves in kind of working to become a pharmacist was absolutely something that we were very proud of. But when when my experience postpartum, when I went through it with Karishma, my daughter in 2016, I couldn’t believe that this was the norm, that postpartum was very isolating for not just myself. There was just not so much dialog around it. So yeah, absolutely. It was very difficult. A lot of folks say that go chase your passion, just leave your full time job. But that wasn’t really in the books for me and I felt like it was. Since it was bootstrapped ourselves up until now, it was not an option. So I decided after two years of doing both, essentially to finally. Divert all my attention to the snapback.

Lee Kantor: [00:04:03] Now, when you made that leap. That’s kind of, you know, kind of burning the boats behind you. Was that conversation difficult with your family?

Dr. Pinkey Patel: [00:04:14] You know, my parents, they’re they’ve always been supportive and a lot of things that I’ve done that have not been so traditional in our community. But beyond that, even my spouse, my husband, we’ve had several conversations, you know, and it was like, you know, we can go two ways because you can continue being a pharmacist and doing this and then having a little bit on the side that fulfills your passion just to help women in in postpartum. Or you could go ahead and leave pharmacy and, you know, utilize all your attention towards this and build this out to be bigger and impact more women. And it was very difficult because considering that when I launched the app, it was it was launched in 166 countries, the beta version. And I was nine months pregnant. So I had the baby a couple of weeks after or June and it was, I was postpartum I the app had launched and then I was going to go back to work full time. And that is the same week that COVID was a thing in March. And so obviously as a mother to a five month old baby that I was breastfeeding while I was trying to keep snapback alive and going back to work full time, that wasn’t the right time to go full time at the snapback because health insurance and everything else that we were getting from being a pharmacist, it just wasn’t the right decision. But after one year of practicing again and then being in a better space, it was a better decision for our family. Yeah.

Lee Kantor: [00:05:44] Now, when you launched the app, were you the technologist or you had to find a technologist?

Dr. Pinkey Patel: [00:05:50] Yeah, we outsource the development to a team here and they built the app for us and then give it to us to go ahead and launch. So I was not the person that physically coded the app. No.

Lee Kantor: [00:06:04] Was that difficult for you to find the right fit when it comes to someone that can make your vision, you know, become a reality.

Dr. Pinkey Patel: [00:06:11] Very difficult because at the beginning you’re like, where do you go? You know someone who comes from zero business background and is strictly I call scientists minded. I could do science and math all day long, but then when you’re starting to think about outsourcing something and building a vision, it takes a lot of trust and a lot of gut in finding the right person that aligns with your mission was very difficult, but luckily we were able to find someone that not only met our expectations but beyond. And that was it took time. Right. And so there’s not a proper book or a blueprint to do this. And I think that was the most challenging piece for me, because I come from a very black and white type of background in terms of my education.

Lee Kantor: [00:06:54] Now, did you see any similarities from that science and math background in the world of startup, in that you have to have a hypothesis, you have to test it, you have to tweak it, you have to, you know, make changes based on real information, not what you thought.

Dr. Pinkey Patel: [00:07:09] Yes. A lot of it is similar in different capacities now, now that you kind of made that analogy of thinking about it and, you know, in 2018, before even the app was launched or the snapback was we built the community for snapback. It was more so me understanding product market fit and I didn’t realize that’s what it was called. You know, now retrospectively I’m like, Oh, that’s how I tested product market fit. But working with other women and understanding their pain points and then creating a solution, I feel like a lot of the science and math type of infrastructure I was using, I was using, utilizing it. And I have to say the grit and the discipline of becoming a pharmacist and getting my doctorate at a young age, I certainly did apply that because that does absolutely changes the trajectory of being an entrepreneur as well, because it’s one of those things that there’s no direct ROI when you’re building something from ground up yourself. And those characteristics definitely helped in in being a founder.

Lee Kantor: [00:08:17] So what are some of the early signs that this thing had legs, that you were getting traction?

Dr. Pinkey Patel: [00:08:25] So the early signs were in 2018 when I started working with women because I am a pre and post-natal corrective exercise specialist. There are women that were trying to have babies, they were pregnant and they were also postpartum. And when women continuously, you know, we’re really tired when we have babies, not only are we leaving the hospital with a new human being, but we’re having to navigate feeding this human being, whether you try breastfeeding or not. A lot of us try to attempt it. We see how far we can get. Some of us do formula feeding. Either way, irrespective of how you decide to feed your baby, you’re also navigating your own hormones and operating on very, very little sleep while having to be on all the time. And so given that we’re doing all this alone without a manual and then we’ve pretty much reorganized our organs for nine months, and then we go home and nothing happens for six weeks. You do not see a provider unless you have an appointment for another reason, but the standard of care is usually 6 to 8 weeks. You see your OB and then they clear you for movements. Whatever you’re doing before you can do anything under the sun, there is no roadmap.

Dr. Pinkey Patel: [00:09:35] So then women later, 12 to 18 months later, they’re like coming up for air. They’re sleeping at night. They’re realizing that things aren’t working like they were used to. Maybe they’re peeing on themselves incontinence. Maybe they’re having lower back pain, pain with intercourse. So the same story over and over again that women are using panty liners when they’re running or they’re not talking to anybody about leaking or they’re embarrassed to go to Orangetheory. You know, those stories were consistent. And so that was where I was like, something has to change. And I started recognizing that in some countries, not many, there are government mandated physical therapy sessions where someone comes to your home after you have the baby and they make sure that you can walk before you run or crawl before you walk. And essentially a lot of that is missed entirely. So changing the narrative in our society has been a challenge. But yes, this story is beyond 2020 or 2019 up until now. This is something that’s been happening for a while. And I think it’s just because. It’s just never been addressed in this capacity or there’s just more folks talking about postpartum now, which makes it a little easier.

Lee Kantor: [00:10:46] So the community is a big part of the app?

Dr. Pinkey Patel: [00:10:49] Absolutely. We before we ask for a single dollar, we launched the community and that is our catalyst. Without we didn’t spend a single dollar, aside from maybe a four week test ad campaign on marketing or ad spend. And that was because our community was built on credibility, transparent information that was deeply rooted in science. And we wanted to earn the trust of other health care professions. Me being, me having a doctorate myself, I obviously value evidence based research and data, but also coming coming with a presence of like this is a safe place where empowering you with knowledge and these are things that should be discussed. Our audience really resonated with that. So our community being built on Facebook and Instagram through word of mouth, and then in September we came with a solution like, This is how we can help you. So I think that building the community first absolutely was was something that I’ll never regret. And that same community continues to come back.

Lee Kantor: [00:11:57] So now how do people engage with the app? So it’s through the Facebook or the community first, and then the app is presented as a solution for some of the challenges they’re facing.

Dr. Pinkey Patel: [00:12:09] So that was how we started before we launched, launched the app and said, Hey, we actually have an app for an all in one postpartum assistant because it was created because number one, we’re busy, we don’t need to Google at three in the morning because we’re all worried about the same thing. We have neurosurgeons that are probably Googling it during the morning because we want to make sure, I don’t know, mothers just they worry a lot about a lot of things and we need to keep everything in one place. So that was the premise of creating an all in one type of assistant. But. The app was launched in 166 countries and we started noticing we have over 40 countries that are paid and using it that folks were going into the App Store. So you can go to the App Store and you can go to Google Play Store and you can just type in postpartum and the snapback will come up as an app. So there were people in other countries that probably aren’t following us on social media, haven’t heard about it, but they were searching postpartum and that’s where they downloaded the app. So when you download the app, there’s, there’s a few features where they’re free, right? Or we’re the first in-app anonymous community for postpartum women where you can talk with anybody across the world that’s on the same app at any time. So yeah, you can download it from the App Store. A lot of folks just find us because they’re typing post partum, but if they happen to be a follower on Instagram, yeah, they’re going to hear about the snapback app. Yeah.

Lee Kantor: [00:13:30] Now what got you interested in participating in the start up showdown?

Dr. Pinkey Patel: [00:13:37] So as I started realizing how I wanted to scale and reach more women and impact, we decided that we were going to entertain raising capital and the startup showdown. I don’t even remember. I think it was through LinkedIn or somebody had mentioned it to me and we kind of fit the demographic. I’m in Oklahoma, there in Atlanta, and so I thought, Well, why not apply? It seems like a great opportunity. I’m a firm believer that making yourself, putting yourself in uncomfortable positions always helps with building character and learning something. So I said, Why not just do it? It was last July, actually, when I did Startup Showdown, and I was they were able to link me up with mentors, which I found very valuable. When you’re a founder, you wear every hat and there are some hats that may not fit as well as you want them to. So I found value in what they were creating. They were not just creating a pitch competition, but they were also giving value to founders. There’s a lot of noise when you’re an entrepreneur. There’s a lot of noise when you’re when you’re fundraising. Not only are we fundraising, we’re scaling, we’re sourcing leads for hires, we’re building communities. We’re making sure our product works for showing our metrics. So I think that they’re doing something right because not only are there like, hey, come pitch, you know, because that takes time too, but also here are some mentors that can help you before you pitch. And I think what they’re doing is great.

Lee Kantor: [00:15:03] So have you been able to get funding?

Dr. Pinkey Patel: [00:15:06] Yes, we have secured a lead investor and we’re continuing to close this first round. So yeah, we’re working towards securing this first round of funding and we’re really excited about that.

Lee Kantor: [00:15:19] Now how do you how did you find the funding adventure? Because that’s like a whole other business, if you know.

Dr. Pinkey Patel: [00:15:28] My goodness. Fundraising is a necessary evil. It’s one of those things where the chicken and the egg. Right. You have to have if you want to scale at a certain level, you have to have a certain amount of capital to get where you need to be. Now, me being a woman of color, a first generation immigrant, and in essentially to those in Tier one cities in the middle of nowhere, I’m in Norman, Oklahoma, it’s a little bit more difficult. But I think if Cuba did one thing, it allowed us to use Zoom, whether we love it or not. But fundraising is one of those things that’s the only 2% of women get get funding. And so you’re already saying, all right, I’m going to I’m going to try to go after this, but it’s going to be hard as hell. But, yeah, I certainly see that I’ve made I’ve met incredible people. I’ve learned a lot about myself. I’ve learned a lot about how venture capital works. There’s not really a book. I mean, certainly, yes, I did read a few books, but I had to spend a solid 3 to 4 months to understand cat tables, term sheets, what that even meant.

Dr. Pinkey Patel: [00:16:29] How do you navigate this? There’s so much noise. What makes sense? What do you say no to? It is one of those things where no one can really prepare you. You just have to throw yourself into the fire. And that means at one point, I don’t know if you remember when Clubhouse was a thing, but I would sign up for every pitch competition and I would be changing diapers because my son was only like six months old and I would just start throwing myself into rooms and pitching. I’m like, They can’t see me. They don’t know what I look like, they don’t even know me. So it’s one of those things that I mean, I know a lot of people don’t talk about it, but I have no issues discussing like how that looked. Clubhouse is not like huge anymore. I guess I don’t open it as much, but at the time it was a way for me to practice. So the most hardest thing I’ve done is fundraising.

Lee Kantor: [00:17:14] So now any advice for other, let’s say, first generation immigrant founders? What are some of the kind of do’s and don’ts?

Dr. Pinkey Patel: [00:17:26] Do lean into the grit or discipline that you’ve learned as being a first generation founder. We all kind of go, we have similarities. And the similarities are that we are often faced with adverse events or put in positions where we’re having to dig deep, and that same characteristic is going to carry on in whatever we decide to do, whether it’s building a business or whether it’s fundraising. A little bit of both there. There. Absolutely. My my background and and everything that I’ve seen and my parents being immigrants 30 years ago has definitely helped in this process. This is a long game. And now any founder will tell you, like if you’re not deeply passionate, it’s not going to last very long and you’re definitely not going to do it for the money. And it’s if you’re doing it for the money, then you’re doing it for the wrong reasons. But lean into the characteristics that really make you who you are to weather the storm. The don’ts is take every and do take everybody’s opinion with a grain of salt and go with your gut. Because at the end of the day, that’s why that’s the reason why I’m still here doing what I am. And the reason why I started this was so I can impact women and strengthen and strengthen the pillars of our society. Right. So if you’re if we’re ignoring what what women need at that very vulnerable time frame, then we’re really not facilitating a thriving society or family. And so just leaning into your Y at all times, don’t don’t listen to the noise. There’s a lot of noise now. I think being a little more minimalist and simplistic is is key. So I think those are kind of my my high level.

Lee Kantor: [00:19:12] Now, you mentioned that one of the benefits of going through Startup Showdown was the mentors. Has there been a mentor for you that has helped guide you through this adventure?

Dr. Pinkey Patel: [00:19:23] Yeah. So specifically startup shutdown because I.

Lee Kantor: [00:19:25] Have someone know anybody in your life.

Dr. Pinkey Patel: [00:19:29] A mentor. Well, I’d hate to. I mean, honestly, my mother, she has no. She’s just somebody that I lean into whenever for any reason, whether she understands, whether she understands what I’m doing. Half the time, I don’t even feel like they know and understand what I’m doing, to be honest with you. But they’ve always been open, and her guidance and insight that always leads into working hard and being honest is not lost on me. I don’t have a specific mentor for entrepreneurship at this time, but I don’t I mean, I do believe in coaching and investing in yourself. But yeah, she’s been a constant mentor. Just by whether her act of what she’s done in her past, watching her navigate what she did when she came into to America, those things have carried with me. Now, there was a mentor at sort of showdown that I still keep in touch with. And and I I’m really I’m really I really appreciated that connection because at the time, I was navigating a part of business that I wasn’t very familiar with. And that’s why I feel like startup was a little piece of my heart for that as well.

Lee Kantor: [00:20:40] Now, what’s been the most rewarding part of this? You know, in your career? You’ve had a very eclectic career that have touched a variety of the elements of what you’re developing now. But as you know, working individually as a trainer with these moms, you know, where you see a person kind of thrive because of your help or in this sense of building a community where there’s lots and lots of people there. Has that been more rewarding?

Dr. Pinkey Patel: [00:21:11] The reward comes from the community aspect and the like. For instance, the community aspect, number one, because they’re like, I did not know this. I am so glad that I knew about this because of what I saw on your blog or your website or the app or the Instagram things. For instance, post partum, whenever you’re weaning, there’s a hormonal shift. So mental health is impacted. These are things that a lot of folks don’t talk about. So really, really hearing stories from women, whether it’s through DMS on Instagram or a message in our our inbox of something that they’ve learned from our community that’s very fulfilling. Another piece is when I’m going on to the App Store and I see positive reviews that I had nothing to do with, and they’re like second time mothers and they post that the first time around they weren’t able to have X, Y and Z control. They had these impairments in their quality of life. And then the second time around, they implemented the techniques that we suggested for rehab and recovery, and they had a completely different experience. And now they’re able to do the things that they love without pain or embarrassment for other reasons. To me, that’s very fulfilling. That means that something is working and that we’re doing something right.

Lee Kantor: [00:22:30] So what do you need more of? How can we help?

Dr. Pinkey Patel: [00:22:34] I think that just raising more awareness around postpartum dialog making continue continue the startup showdown and having these mentors available for founders that are in the same boat as I that we’re raising their first rounds of capital that needed some of the mentorships and elements. Just keep doing what you guys are doing because it’s working.

Lee Kantor: [00:22:56] Now, if somebody wants to connect with you or learn more about the snap back, what’s the website or what are the coordinates?

Dr. Pinkey Patel: [00:23:02] Yeah, so the website is the snap bbc.com. You can also find us on Instagram and Facebook at the Snapback, and we also have contact information on our website as well.

Lee Kantor: [00:23:13] Well, thank you so much for sharing your story. You’re doing important work and we appreciate you.

Dr. Pinkey Patel: [00:23:18] Thank you so much for having me. This was awesome.

Lee Kantor: [00:23:20] All right. This is Lee Kantor. We’ll see you all next time on Startup Showdown.

Intro: [00:23:25] As always, thanks for joining us. And don’t forget to follow and subscribe to the Startup Showdown podcast. So you get the latest episode as it drops wherever you listen to podcasts to learn more and apply to our next startup Showdown Pitch Competition Visit Showdown Dot VC. That’s Showdown Dot VC. All right, that’s all for this week. Goodbye for now.

Julie Fabsik-Swarts With Employees Assistance Professionals Association

July 13, 2022 by Jacob Lapera

Association Leadership Radio

Julie Fabsik-Swarts With Employees Assistance Professionals Association

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Julie Fabsik-Swarts, MS, CFRE, CAP is the CEO of the Employee Assistance Professionals Association (EAPA). EAPA supports thousands of professionals in Employee Assistance throughout the United States and in over 40 countries. She is a skilled and dynamic nonprofit, association, and sports leader with over 35 years of experience. Raised in New York City, Julie has led such prestigious organizations as the National Postdoctoral Association, the National Intercollegiate Soccer Officials Association, and the national governing body of an Olympic sport.

Additionally, she has worked for organizations such as The Pennsylvania State University, the US Olympic and Paralympic Committee, The Seattle Organizing Committee of the Goodwill Games, the Purple Heart Foundation, UC Berkeley, Lock Haven University of Pennsylvania, the University of Pennsylvania, and the American College.

Julie has extensive experience having served on numerous nonprofit Board of Directors including the Philadelphia Committee on City Policy, Women in Development, and the National Association of Women’s Gymnastics Judges. She is an accomplished author having written numerous articles for Advancing Philanthropy Magazine, Purple Heart Magazine, and the book Parenting a Gymnast. Julie earned a Bachelor of Science in Biology from San Diego State University and a Master of Science focusing on Sports Management from the University of Massachusetts at Amherst.

She is a Certified Fundraising Executive (CFRE), a Chartered Advisor of Philanthropy (CAP) from the American College, and a certified nonprofit executive from LaSalle University. On the personal side, Julie is a nationally rated Women’s Gymnastics Judge for over four decades for USA Gymnastics and the NCAA, a certified to official for collegiate tumbling and acrobatics (NCATA), and a certified judge for youth acrobatics and tumbling competitions.

She is President of Blue Tail Consulting and has traveled to over 35 countries including Siberia Russia to teach, Australia for the 2000 Olympics and to Asia to scuba dive and to celebrate her 25th wedding anniversary. A certified Master Scuba Dive, she lives with her husband and dive partner, Mike, and her rescued dogs live in the Norfolk/Virginia Beach area.

Connect with Julie on LinkedIn.

What You’ll Learn In This Episode

Employee Assistance Professional
The advantage for an EAP to be a member of EAPA

This transcript is machine transcribed by Sonix

TRANSCRIPT

Intro: [00:00:03] Broadcasting live from the Business RadioX studios in Atlanta, Georgia. It’s time for Association Leadership Radio. Now, here’s your host.

Lee Kantor: [00:00:20] Lee Kantor here another episode of Association Leadership Radio, and this is going to be a good one. Today on the show, we have Julie Swarts and she is with Employees Assistance Professionals Associations, EPA. Welcome, Julie.

Julie Fabsik-Swarts: [00:00:36] Thank you.

Lee Kantor: [00:00:37] I’m excited to learn what you’re up to. Tell us about EPA. How are you serving folks?

Julie Fabsik-Swarts: [00:00:42] So EPA is the Employees Assistance Professionals Association, otherwise known as EPA’s. And in the private sector, about 84% of American companies have an EPA on staff. And in the government world, it’s about 90%. Yet those 74 million people don’t always seem to recognize that this is a benefit that comes with part of their package for employment. And it’s a great resource. Ips are like the unsung heroes of our corporate world. They are there to help individuals who are struggling with mental health issues maybe depression, anxiety, addiction. If you’re dealing with workplace violence or maybe a maybe need a treatment center, maybe you’ve got an issue with domestic violence or child care. They’re there to help you. And they are amazing individuals who get don’t get a lot of credit and certainly not overpaid. And we’re here to talk about them and the great work that they do. And EPA is their association that supports them and helps them grow as professionals.

Lee Kantor: [00:01:48] And then a person that becomes an employee assistance professional. Is that part of H.R. like how are they involved with the organization?

Julie Fabsik-Swarts: [00:01:57] Usually just like a another benefit like retirement person or a medical benefit. Aps are a variety of different ways and they can either work full time for a specific company, so they’re on staff at a hospital or corporation, or maybe they get contracted out. So maybe the corporation hires an outside company such as Beacon or Life Works or some E&P to hire them to be providing services to assess and to refer out to help solve whatever problem is going on with the employee. And then study after study has shown us that when employees reach out and ask for help, we can keep them in their jobs and make them productive long term employees, which is good for the employee, their families, and for the corporate world.

Lee Kantor: [00:02:49] So how did kind of employee assistance professionals come about? What’s the history of this? Were they kind of bubble up from the corporation or from the government? How how did it occur?

Julie Fabsik-Swarts: [00:03:01] Neither of those they actually their roots were in addiction. Starting out in Alcoholics Anonymous kind of area. And if you go to our website at EPA, CSN org, you can see the whole history there. But really its roots were specifically in helping individuals battle alcohol addiction in the fifties and sixties eventually. Epa was born in 1980 to help support all of those individuals that were growing professions in making this. Something that every corporation should have and every employee should have access to.

Lee Kantor: [00:03:43] Now, when a company is deciding to have an employee assistance professional, what are some of the like? What would be a reason not to have one?

Julie Fabsik-Swarts: [00:03:54] Well, there is a cost to it, just like bringing on medical benefits for your employees or bringing on retirement programs. There is a cost, but a recent study we have a study called Workplace Outcome Suites, which recently showed us that most cases there are 1% or less than the benefits budget. So they’re really a great bargain. And overall, the statistics are telling us they are doing amazing work. They are helping people be more engaged in the work that they do. They’re helping prevent turnover. They’re helping them deal with their issues so that they can stay productive on a job. Also, if you think about today’s news, if preventing gun violence or if something happens, helping solve and prevent PTSD on the other side of a critical incident, unfortunately, that’s the reality. So when commit suicide, a gun is brought to work. Something happens in the home front. These are the folks that are helping to deal with these critical issues. And let me tell you, Covid’s been no friend to the gaps. So many people working at home in isolation, very high rates of depression and anxiety.

Lee Kantor: [00:05:00] And and the way that an EAP helps is that they become a resource for the employee to help them if they’re struggling in one of these areas.

Julie Fabsik-Swarts: [00:05:11] Exactly. So maybe they might help them get counseling. Maybe they might help them get the help of a psychiatrist or a treatment center. They might help them find a resource to deal with domestic violence. They might help them even find child care centers that might fit into their their financial needs and employee package.

Lee Kantor: [00:05:31] And this is one of those things that once the employee is aware of a benefit like this, I would imagine they become more loyal and the retention improves.

Julie Fabsik-Swarts: [00:05:40] Exactly. Unfortunately, we still have a tremendous stigma with mental health issues these days, and ourselves and our association partners are working very hard to try and break down that stigma. You know, no one have a problem saying I’m going to the doctor because I broke my leg. But going to the problem, going to the doctor or the therapist is a lot less comfortable. But the good thing about it is it’s usually available at work. It’s usually and it’s always confidential unless there’s a crisis situation. But it can also get individuals into badly needed care much faster than outside medical benefits will help you get to a psychiatrist or psychologist. So we’re hearing about 3 to 4 months to get a psychologist or psychiatrist. They’re just so overwhelmed out there, whereas an EAP and if there’s a real need, they can help do it. It’s usually a matter of days to weeks.

Lee Kantor: [00:06:36] Now, what about kind of coaches? Do you help in that area or do you kind of draw a line of this has to be kind of a physician led interaction?

Julie Fabsik-Swarts: [00:06:46] Well, many EAP, these are counselors themselves. But there’s a very fine line that if they’re referring and assessing, assessing excuse me, assessing and referring, they are not doing the counseling themselves. They’re usually putting that out and referring that to someone else in the mental health field. Most of our EAP are licensed social workers, psychologists, counselors, therapists, nurses, even. Sometimes they even have their second, second careers. They’ve found a calling in the EAP world. So they’re really an amazing group of individuals who have received a whole lot of training and now are really putting it right into the daily work space.

Lee Kantor: [00:07:28] Now, as a leader of this group, are you spending a lot of time kind of coaching up your yaps or is it educating kind of corporations and government about the services that the app can provide?

Julie Fabsik-Swarts: [00:07:44] So most of our time in leadership is spent working to educate and develop our apps as professionals. We have a certification program called The Seep, and also we provide a number of educational opportunities in a variety of areas. Anything from understanding what’s going on with marijuana across the states, understanding different aspects of psychedelics, how do you deal with counseling someone who’s addressing the current crisis issues abortion, gun violence? All those issues are right up front with our counselors. Additionally, we run an annual conference. This year’s conference is going to be in Norfolk, Virginia, October seven through ninth. So we’re really excited about that. And then we do things like we create. We are part of a team. That is advocating on the federal level for positive mental health advocacy. And we are really looking to bring on the next generation of yaps. I hate to tell you, but a lot of our folks and myself are beginning to see that gray on the roof. And we’re really hopeful that we can reach out to the next generation of social workers, counselors and really think about get them to think about EAP as a career choice, really.

Lee Kantor: [00:09:03] So that’s a challenge that I would think that this would be an area that a lot of people are drawn to because, number one, it’s helping so many people. And, you know, there are so many more service minded people, I would think today that they would want to kind of feel good about their day to day.

Julie Fabsik-Swarts: [00:09:19] I think it’s one of those best kept secrets. 74 million people have EAP as part of their benefits package, yet we don’t have anywhere near percentage of 74 million people. Very it’s much lower than it should be. And I think it’s because one of the social stigma and two I think people don’t realize that they have I have an EAP available and what that means and I think the biggest successes we’ve seen have been when CEOs embrace EAP work, they get out there and say, you know, we all need some help. Sometimes we’re all human beings. No matter where you are in the globe, we are there and we are needing help. And I reach out for help. We recommend that you do. We want to keep you for around for a long time. And we want to see all your challenges met. And I use the EAP. Why don’t you join me when you need that? And by the a CEO being able to say that it goes a long, long way. Also, regular seminars and promotion of that. The EAP program is there at work has gone a long way as well in conjunction with wellness programs such as meditation and yoga. All those are wonderful, but having that mental health issue is really a benefit that’s second to none.

Lee Kantor: [00:10:35] So now is there is there a program for like young people in college so they can learn about being in the AP as a career choice?

Julie Fabsik-Swarts: [00:10:44] There’s not enough programs in college, and we would love to have more. We’d love to reach out to them. We’re trying to reach to many academics to get them getting EAP as part of their curriculum, especially in social work and is part of counseling or work as a nurse or therapist, we really believe that it would be a great asset to their their curriculum and it would help introduce the profession to a lot of people who don’t even realize it exists. People who have it as a benefit don’t realize it exists. So young people definitely don’t because they usually aren’t working at corporations that have that kind of support system.

Lee Kantor: [00:11:21] So the EAP that exists right now and they’re working, are they sometimes solopreneur is like their that’s their business and they’re serving a variety of, you know, industry or government government offices within their where they’re located. Is that how it works? Are they’re part of a like kind of a mega company that does EAP as a service for lots of people.

Julie Fabsik-Swarts: [00:11:43] So a quick answer is yes. We have single practitioners that hang out their shingle and will take on clients as referred. And we have individuals who are hybrid. We have individuals who work in union situations right in on shop floors and understand what’s going on in day to day with the employees. We have individuals who work remotely on large, large corporations such as Beacon Health, Life Works, some jail, some to name a few. So we have every kind of work situation you can imagine some 100% remote online that you would reach out to someone on a phone or a zoom or some are in person and some are hybrid. But the important aspect is that we want to make sure that people know they’re there for them and that they can reach out. Confidentiality applies and they are 100% of the time.

Lee Kantor: [00:12:37] Now, if if an EAP is out there, are they kind of an automatic member of your association or is this something that you would like them to join to be part of, you know, the greater good here and everybody helping everybody.

Julie Fabsik-Swarts: [00:12:53] So they have to join. But there is a benefit to being a member of EPA. All our educational programs are certification program, our conference, all that, all those items are all tremendously discounted. We teach a full course load of EAP education and professional mental health education, and it’s a great way to get those get those hours in. Additionally, on bigger things such as our conference, we can go out and get the approval of social work and MSW or different other associations so that if you’re a social worker and you need credits to keep your license, you can come to an EPA event and still get social work professional. Development hours. So we hope that individuals come on out and who are IPS and become members. A couple of other things that we do, we offer every Wednesday and this was started back two years ago at the beginning of the pandemic. Every Wednesday we have usually about 100 apps dial into a Zoom call and there’s a facilitator and a topic, but it’s an opportunity for them to share best practices, to almost let their hair down and be comfortable among each other and to hear what other people are going through. And it’s really wonderful to have one app who’s struggling here that they’re not alone. The other thing we’ve been doing is the beginning of the year. We gave 16 weeks, so we call them free Friday webinars for members. You get 16 professional development hours to use just by coming every Friday and learning a new topic. So we try and provide as much support as we can for our members and we even find niches. There’s a specific group of apps and health care apps in various aspects in the government, and if we can help them facilitate them getting together higher education together, especially around our conference, it’s really a great experience.

Lee Kantor: [00:14:51] And then there’s also local branches that an EAP can join and become part of that local community as well.

Julie Fabsik-Swarts: [00:14:58] Absolutely. We have chapters throughout the country and they’re all volunteer led and they develop their own professional education as well as mentoring. And then we are actually in officially in nine other countries, we call them Branches and Asia being the most popular, Japan and China and Taiwan, very active branches of EPA. And then there are other places in the world that we are trying to make headway in. We actually have had members in over 40 countries in the world.

Lee Kantor: [00:15:30] Now, I would imagine if you’re in the AP and what better way to kind of plug into your community and learn just from people the good, the bad, the ugly about what’s going on, how to grow my practice, what other services are out there. Or I’d learn about it and be able to get credentials to increase my value. And it just seems like a no brainer for anybody that’s in the AP.

Julie Fabsik-Swarts: [00:15:55] Well, we hope we hope to get in front of everybody and hope they agree with you on that point. And, you know, any profession, whether you’re a doctor in the AMA or a nurse in the ANA or any other profession, it’s always best to join your association. Together we are stronger. We can find a common voice. We can find what is most advantageous for that. Profession and we’re always to say all associations are non profit. So we are owned and operated by a volunteer board of directors. No one gets paid to be on the board of directors. They give a tremendous amount of hours and we have a number of committees people volunteer on whether it’s develop the conference or to support membership or specific task force. Currently, we’re actually working on redoing our website. I actually have 973 pages being reviewed by volunteers to make sure they’re accurate before they go on to the new website. It’s a great way to build friendships, networks, support systems, mentors, association work is just been a wonderful boon for my personal ethics and goals of my career.

Lee Kantor: [00:17:03] Now, can you share a piece of advice maybe, for that young person out there that hasn’t, you know, kind of really leveraged the association to its fullest? What are some things you would do if you were coaching a young person that’s an employee assistance professional and they join. They just joined. What are some of the things they should do to really kind of wring out the most value from their membership?

Julie Fabsik-Swarts: [00:17:30] So I would highly recommend coming to those Wednesday, we call them Wednesday wellness sessions where you can get to meet and see a whole bunch of folks and build a little network. I also recommend coming to our conference where you can build one on one opportunities to really find that person that’s going to share with you their vision and how they got there. You can see the best of what they do and is really an impressive group and it’s always amazing is they’re so willing to share their time, their expertise, their talents, and they really want to see the next generation come on. So they are more than welcoming and bringing on new folks. Additionally, we have a great certification program. We’ve just converted it in the last year to five learning modules where you can sit in the comfort of your home, in your jammies and and learn about ERP work and then take a test. And each time you do that for five modules and then if you’re not already an experienced VP, you can go through our mentoring program where you can learn a lot of different areas by experience professionals, and in the end you will have a network, you will have a certification, and you will have resources for questions, concerns, challenges, be everything you need. And then we expect you to get involved and start leading us for the future.

Lee Kantor: [00:18:46] Right. And that’s an important thing, that joining is great, but you have to get involved, right? You have to take action. You have to kind of volunteer and demonstrate kind of your passion and your intelligence and your skills.

Julie Fabsik-Swarts: [00:19:01] Quite often, many things in life are what you you get out of it, what you put into it. And I think associations are definitely along those lines. They most people who I’ve talked to in this association love what they do and are passionate about it, but they are also passionate about the work EPA does. And we couldn’t have formed, developed and been supportive to the next generation. Now the staff are not. We are profit professionals, we are not yaps. We expect each to deliver and determine our direction. Our course load are whatever the next generation of VAP need that is all generated by professionals.

Lee Kantor: [00:19:42] Now is there a story you can share about the impact that the AP has made on an organization that you’re aware of and maybe help them get to a new level?

Julie Fabsik-Swarts: [00:19:52] Well, I’ll tell you two stories about me personally. So the reason I took this position was, one, I had a good friend of mine still do a good friend of mine who realized that she was struggling with alcohol and she went to her E.P. at her work and they helped her get clean and sober. And she is a recovering alcoholic to this day, clean and sober and and having her best life. And that’s the bottom line is helping workers have their best life and addition. I also have a relative who is actually dealing with a very stressful mental health issue. And it turned out he was bipolar, but he didn’t know this at the time, went to work and was really suicidal and called his E.P. and they walked him into a mental health facility where he was able to get diagnosed and followed and treated on medication. And he is a very happy and now a productive employee of this company. So those are the kinds of success stories I personally have witnessed. I also heard about a great story about an individual who was struggling at a West Coast university, and the gap was kind of on like almost like a retainer when they thought they really needed assistance, they would call them. So this university department called them and they said, you know, this this gentleman’s not doing well.

Julie Fabsik-Swarts: [00:21:16] He’s struggling in his position and he keeps talking about his guns and his coworkers are really getting nervous. So the AP came in and met with them and they had a long conversation. And I’m making this sound much quicker and easier than it was, but it was an extensive conversation about what his goals were, what the challenges of the job were, and in the long run, they decided it would have been a great time for him to retire and he could go out with medical benefits and nice money package and respect of his coworkers and and his supervisors. And it was time and together they walked down to the HR office. They got the gentleman all the paperwork done, and he left with respect and happiness, as opposed to the scenarios where someone feels very disrespected and underappreciated and they try to come back with their guns and find their boss or whoever else in the way. And then you have nothing but tragedy. You have heartbreak, you have violence in the workplace, and there’s there’s no win. And in the long run, that’s a little bit invested in the benefits. Budget saves a lot a lot of tragedy, lawsuits, money, heartache and stress and production of an organization. So EPS are, as I said, were are often the unsung heroes.

Lee Kantor: [00:22:36] Absolutely. I mean, the impact is real. So if there’s an E.P. out there that wants to learn more about the association or a corporate organization or a government organization that wants to learn more, what is the website for the association?

Julie Fabsik-Swarts: [00:22:53] So it’s EPA, SSN dot org. So EAP Association dot org EPA SSN dot org.

Lee Kantor: [00:23:03] Well, Julie, thank you so much for sharing your story today. You’re doing such important work and we appreciate you.

Julie Fabsik-Swarts: [00:23:09] Thank you so much. We appreciate the opportunity to share the great work we are doing throughout the world.

Lee Kantor: [00:23:14] All right. This is Lee Kantor. We’ll see all next time on the Association Leadership Radio.

Ed Bardwell With Rainmaker Digital Services, LLC

July 13, 2022 by Jacob Lapera

High Velocity Radio

Ed Bardwell With Rainmaker Digital Services, LLC

00:00 /

Ed Bardwell is the President at Rainmaker Digital Services (RMDS), the providerof the Rainmaker Platform. With clients and staff across the globe, RMDS is aglobal leader in content marketing solutions that develops marketing strategiesand technologies that help clients meet their business goals.

Ed also serves as the CEO Nimble Worldwide, an integrated advertising agencybased in Dallas, Texas. Nimble Worldwide has been recognized for its innovativeuse of technology to support the marketing efforts of its clients. Awards haveincluded agency of the year by the Social Media Club, Emmys, and Addy Awards. Astrong proponent of the concept of “Method + Message = Results,” Ed leadsNimble’s strategic efforts within the agency.

Connect with Ed on LinkedIn and follow RMDS on Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter.

What You’ll Learn In This Episode

The power of content marketing
How has technology changed the relationship between a brand and a consumer
A content framework is critical to every business
Marketing used to be a broadway show, today it’s a conversation
Marketing is an investment

This transcript is machine transcribed by Sonix

TRANSCRIPT

Intro: [00:00:05] Broadcasting live from the Business RadioX studios in Atlanta, Georgia. It’s time for high velocity radio.

Lee Kantor: [00:00:15] Lee Kantor here, another episode of High Velocity Radio. And this is going to be a good one. And if you’ve got a pencil and paper, get ready to get a lot of notes and a lot of great information. We have the president of Rainmaker Digital Services, Ed Bardwell, with us today. Welcome, Ed.

Ed Bardwell: [00:00:33] Thank you for having me.

Lee Kantor: [00:00:34] I am so excited to be talking to you. Full disclosure, Business RadioX, which produces this show, is a client of Rainmaker. They do our website and they have done it for many, many years and we’ve been extremely happy with them and proud to call them a partner in our business. And I would love for Ed to share a little bit about Rainmaker Digital Services in terms of some of the services you offer other small to midsize businesses.

Ed Bardwell: [00:01:01] Well, sure. First of all, Rainmaker Platform is a comprehensive business marketing platform. And what we mean by that is we take technology out of the conversation for our clients as it relates to their customers. So if you want to add video to a website or simply build a basic blog or web presence, Rainmaker platform is the tool for you. But what we found over the years is many customers become very successful and become our clients, and that’s a distinction that we use to represent those clients that need additional services. In the old days of advertising, and I remember a time I was in a presentation and there were a bunch of ad agency guys, you know, the really good looking type t shirt wearing guys. And I was up there and I was kind of a geeky guy and people were asking why I was so successful. I said, Well, you know, the agency model is dead, you guys are dinosaurs, you just don’t know it. And they were all taken aback. And I went on to explain that everybody needs these basic services, how to build a relationship, how to creatively tell their story, how to represent themselves in the best manner in whatever channel that they’re trying to work with.

Ed Bardwell: [00:02:26] But people were tired of simply buying into the expertise of the agency. And so what we’ve done here at Rainmaker Digital Services is combine the power of the technology with the creative and technical resources to provide a full suite of services, everything from basic branding to media planning, all the way to specific targeted campaigns, depending on a client’s objectives. You know, we’re really big believers that marketing is an investment, not an expense. And so if a customer, if a business is thinking about, oh, my gosh, everybody’s talking about fill in the blank technology or this new channel or this this new social media, we say stop time out. Tell us how that’s going to be an investment for you. And so we try to take a business first, a marketing first, a creative first approach to technology, which is our fundamental differentiator from both the technical competition, who focuses only on the technology and the creative competition that focuses only on the message. We try to bring them together. Message and method is the way we get results.

Lee Kantor: [00:03:36] Now, do you have kind of an avatar for the ideal rainmaker client? Are they solopreneur or are they big firms? Are they in technology or are they in services?

Ed Bardwell: [00:03:50] Lee That’s a great question. The reality is Rainmaker Platform was originally conceived for the small to midsize business. Everyone from the solopreneur that wanted to do this as a side gig up to the company that might have some version of a dedicated marketing resource. But what we’ve found, especially over the last three years, is some of those businesses have had enough success that now they do have dedicated resources, you know, typically not a marketing or creative team of 5 to 7 people, but under five people, though, we do have a handful of global 2000 relationships and most of those folks, most of those enterprises turn to us because our technology and the and the philosophies, the content marketing philosophies behind our technologies allow the the media to be iterated for specific target audiences geographies, and they can do it much more economically than with traditional enterprise software. So the the foundation has always been the small to midsize company. But we have had the opportunity to sharpen our teeth with some enterprise level partners as well.

Lee Kantor: [00:05:11] Now, what’s the pain that those prospective clients are having where Rainmaker Digital is the solution? Like what are maybe some of the breadcrumbs that this business owner or business leader is having that kind of lead them to you?

Ed Bardwell: [00:05:28] There are typically two types of businesses that reach out to us. The first is someone who has had a website or they have a Google my business account, or they’ve done some Facebook advertising and they really don’t know what it’s done for their business. They know they’ve got to have it, but they don’t know what it’s done, how it’s working. And in some cases, unfortunately, there’s been a hack or there’s been some kind of issue. And they may understand the goal of building a relationship through content, but they really struggle with the technology. And those people typically they’ve talked to like an I.T. firm or a consulting firm who starts to use acronyms and the different letter soup that you’re going to find in technology to try to convince these businesses that they should do that, that they should work together. I’ve never thought that technology should be a sword. I’ve always thought it should be a shield. And so for those guys, typically what we tell them is, hey, you know, at the end of the day, you know, all you care about is, is your message in front of the right audience. Is it doing what you want it to do from a marketing perspective? And can we make sure that someone else, a bad actor, can’t negatively impact your brand? So those guys typically turn to us because especially with Rainmaker Platform, you know, from from the time you sign up for the license to the time you leave the platform, which we hope is never you don’t have to talk about technology ever again.

Ed Bardwell: [00:07:19] We can we can control all aspects of your digital presence from the moment that you build that relationship with us. And then the other group of folks is is typically a group that is very technically savvy. We see this with affiliate marketers. Certainly these drop shippers and certain groups of businesses that have strong I’m thinking of like I.T. support groups. They don’t need help with the technology necessarily, but they have very little clue about what digital marketing has to be about today. And that is it has to be about the story. You can’t simply put up a price list or we’re the best in the market at running cable in your office. People need to understand the story behind the business because frankly, today that is what sells. You have to have that relationship with your audience. People are buying more with their heads and hearts than they are with their pocketbooks. So for that audience, we train them on content marketing. We hopefully show them folks like Business RadioX. I mean, your presence is amazing from a content perspective and you certainly are a great illustration of the power of content. And a lot of people say, Well, I want to do that. And so we try to show them some of the basic techniques for blogs, podcasts, video, blogs, things of that nature, where they can begin to build those audiences and have a relationship that goes beyond simply the transaction now.

Lee Kantor: [00:09:03] And that’s kind of a mental shift for entrepreneurs, right? There was a time when the salesperson had all the information and then the customer needed the salesperson in order to kind of buy something. But in today’s world, with so much information available to everybody, you have such a more informed consumer in that you better have a compelling story. You better have a really good back story about how you got involved in this business and what makes you different and special. If you want to build that kind of relationship between you and your customer, is that an area that you help folks with kind of crafting that messaging and crafting that story and giving them the tools to kind of share it?

Ed Bardwell: [00:09:48] Absolutely. You know, if you look back at our history as Copyblogger with Brian Clark and some of those folks or my team’s background, we did some work with Disney back in the early 2000. It’s all about the back story. It’s all about trying to create a approachable and understandable persona that your prospective buyer can understand. We talk frequently about the role of authority and authenticity in our content. Nobody’s going to believe you if you say. I’m. I’m the smartest guy in the room. But if you have a story that shows that you’re the smartest guy in the room or you have testimonials, that’s the power of word of mouth today. And digital is so incredibly high. Reviews, testimonials. Those those adds such color to the story that you’re telling that you can you can introduce the fact that you’re the smartest guy in the room or you’re the best vendor for a potential relationship. But if you have these other elements in your story, well, it becomes much easier to believe that you’re the authority. And then if you add to that. The fact that I’m not the best guy for everybody or I too have stumbled or frequently we will. We will use. In educating customers, especially that second group of folks, you know, tell us tell us the time that you weren’t successful. And then we will help them craft that into the story, because few things are more authentic to prospective customers than knowing when you failed and then how you’ve learned from that failure and corrected it for the future. If you’re human and if you’re if they perceive you as being willing to to act in that transparent and authentic way, it’s much easier to convince them that as an authority that any recommendation that you might make is comes from a place of mutual benefit.

Ed Bardwell: [00:12:01] And really, today, we like to tell folks everyone’s in the media business, whether you like it or not, whether it’s that that unfortunate picture at the PTA meeting or you having a, let’s just say, animated text conversation with a customer that they’ve screenshot. It’s out there. And if you’re not authentic and say, you know what, with with customer X, I did lose my temper or they simply didn’t do X, Y, Z, or whatever the case is, your audience will forgive you. I mean, we’ve found, especially in in the business community and the United States in particular, we’re very forgiving. We just have to believe that there’s a reason to forgive. So you combine a good story that helps establish your authority with things like testimonials and reviews and that transparency and that authenticity to really build a relationship with a prospect. Because what we know is the purchase is not the end of the relationship. You know, I don’t care what you’re selling today. It could be a widget at the end of the day, if the widget doesn’t last, as long as you think people will go on to social media, they will go out into the digital realm. And they’re going to say, Ed’s widget just didn’t do what it said it would. It only lasted for five years and I thought it would last for ten. And people are going to take that as a critique where maybe the rest of the marketplace is only lasting one year. But regardless, you have to be present and prepared for those kinds of media conflicts.

Lee Kantor: [00:13:48] Now I find that I’m sure you do as well. A lot of folks spend their time on their website just talking about themselves. And like you alluded to it earlier, it’s one thing to say, Oh, we’re the best or we’ve been around for 100 years. That doesn’t mean as much to the consumer as I think that the person who wrote that copy thinks it does. You know, the person who’s reading a website or going to a website wants to solve a problem. So if you’re not solving their problem and you’re not showing examples of how you solve similar problems for other people, and having those people speak up and say, hey, without this company and their team, I couldn’t have done that, or I got to a new level because of this person. If your website isn’t filled with that kind of content, then you’re really almost wasting your time because at one time websites were just kind of billboards and they used to be like, Hey, this is my stuff. These are my, you know, it’s like a Yellow Pages ad. Yeah, but not anymore. You’re your website should be a living, breathing thing that’s evolving as you evolve. And it should be filled with information and help and education for your best prospects to learn more about you and understand what makes you different and special.

Ed Bardwell: [00:15:06] Yeah, you’re exactly right. We use a content framework for not only web content, but frankly, any type of business communication called pie. Pie stands for promotion, information and inspiration, and every brand has a unique combination of all three. But exactly to your point, if you simply say, I’m the best at this and here’s my price list, and you just go on and on about how wonderful you are, and you don’t inspire people. You don’t share the information. You know, the power of information sharing today is so much different than it was even ten years ago that we find fairly sophisticated brands really missing the mark by saying, well, we don’t want to tell them how to fix their radio or we don’t want to tell them how to how to reboot their computer. We want them to call us so we can charge them 40 bucks for the for the repair. Well, unfortunately, if you don’t tell them information that is relatively easy to find, they’re going to go to YouTube or to your competitor. They’re going to get the information. And while everyone may lose on that $40 opportunity when they need the $250 OS upgrade or when they want to have somebody help them buy a new computer or whatever the case is, they’re not going to come back to you because you chose not to share information. You’re exactly right. We you’ve got to have all aspects of a content relationship with your prospect.

Lee Kantor: [00:16:41] And you have to have a long term view of your relationship. If you’re looking at a relationship as just transactional, that you’re just trying to get money from somebody today and not trying to serve them over the long haul, then you’re missing out. You’re spending a lot of time and energy to earn that one account for just a short period of time, knowing that they’re going to find somebody else that has this similar thing cheaper elsewhere. So you better be kind of pushing the value curve up and adding more and more value and more and more reason for you to be hanging out with them so they can be doing business with you over and over because it’s so much less expensive to get more business from your existing customers than it is to keep finding brand new customers. I know it seems like there’s billions of people out there, but believe me, it’s a lot easier to get the 100 people that already like you to buy a little more than it is to find another 100 people.

Ed Bardwell: [00:17:34] Yeah, you’re right there, too, you know. With the market today. It’s it’s very easy, whether it’s the the big tech companies or even the boutique craftsmanship e-commerce sites that are out there. You can find business to business, business to business to consumer, a variety of services all across the globe. And so if the only thing you’re competing on is price, you will lose. There is no way to to to win a race to the bottom in terms of price. And it not not only is it easier to to upsell, resell, continue to engage with previous relationships, but it’s also when you create or add value to the relationship, that becomes a barrier to competition that is so difficult to to to crack. You know, we have you know, we are not the cheapest Web solution in the marketplace. In fact, we’re kind of in the middle. You know, there are several that are much more expensive than we are and then several that are much less expensive than we are. And one thing that we have found is from our customers, them telling us things like we see as much value as the much more expensive guys, but at a price point that’s much lower. And then that for those that are at the other end of the spectrum. Well, no, we don’t get any of these services that you guys include for free, whether it’s basics like SSL or secure certificates to make sure your site is protected or logs or database space or whatever it is. You know, we you’re right. It has to be a competition for value. And, you know, everybody since value has a qualitative component to it, everybody’s going to have a different lens or angle that they look at value. And so obviously we’re not the right fit for everyone. But what we do believe very strongly is we have to be a valued partner, not just a vendor. And I would suggest that most businesses, regardless of vertical, regardless of size and regardless of location, needs to be thinking about how you become a partner with your customer, not just a vendor.

Lee Kantor: [00:20:10] So, Ed, what is the the pain that somebody is having today where they should call you and your team? What is what’s kind of that thing that that’s right in their face that maybe they aren’t connecting the dots, that that having a conversation with you and your team could help them sleep better at night.

Ed Bardwell: [00:20:29] First and foremost, if your website’s an expense, whether it’s a billboard or a brochure, if you can’t directly track from your website. To your accounting system somehow say, this is how we’re making money through our website, you should contact us. And then second, if you’re if the message that you’re sharing to the marketplace in any regard is different than the message that is circulating on the Internet, whether that be in social media, your website, your email, then we would strongly suggest that you reach out to us as well.

Lee Kantor: [00:21:08] And if somebody wants to learn more, have a more substantive conversation with you or somebody on the team, what’s the website?

Ed Bardwell: [00:21:14] The two that I would suggest is specifically if you’ve got website questions, rainmaker platform and for broader relationship questions, Rainmaker Digital Dotcom.

Lee Kantor: [00:21:24] Well, Ed, thank you so much for sharing your story today. You’re doing such important work and we appreciate you.

Ed Bardwell: [00:21:30] Thank you so much. I appreciate the opportunity to be with you today.

Lee Kantor: [00:21:33] All right. This is Lee Kantor. We’ll see you all next time on High Velocity Radio.

Matthew Pavelek With NaVOBA

July 12, 2022 by Jacob Lapera

Association Leadership Radio

Matthew Pavelek With NaVOBA

00:00 /

Matthew Pavelek serves as the President and CEO for the National Veteran-Owned Business Association (NaVOBA) – a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization led by Corporate America. NaVOBA’s mission is to create corporate contracting opportunities for America’s Veteran’s and Service-Disabled Veteran’s Business Enterprises (VBEs/SDVBEs) through certification, advocacy, outreach, recognition and education.

Matthew is a leading expert in matters concerning veterans and entrepreneurship. He’s written extensively about opportunities for veterans in Corporate America as well as the federal government marketplace. Pavelek previously served as NaVOBA’s VP of Communications and also as the Executive Editor for Vetrepreneur magazine. Pavelek also served professor of communication, journalism, and public speaking courses for the University of Kentucky and Eastern Kentucky University, among others.

Connect with Matthew on LinkedIn.

What You’ll Learn In This Episode

The progress of the U.S. Military veteran community in terms of entrepreneurship and business ownership
Some of the opportunities for veteran-owned businesses
Some of the challenges facing veteran-owned businesses
Veterans makes them successful as entrepreneurs

This transcript is machine transcribed by Sonix

TRANSCRIPT

Intro: [00:00:02] Broadcasting live from the Business RadioX studios in Atlanta, Georgia. It’s time for Association Leadership Radio. Now, here’s your host.

Lee Kantor: [00:00:19] Lee Kantor here another episode of Association Leadership Radio, and this is going to be a good one. Today on the show we have Matt Pavlik and he is with the National Veteran Owned Business Association called Nwaba Welcome Mat.

Matthew Pevelek: [00:00:35] Thank you very much.

Lee Kantor: [00:00:35] Lee Well, before we get too far into things, tell us a little bit about Nouveau, but how are you serving folks?

Matthew Pevelek: [00:00:41] Well, the most important thing that we do is connect better known businesses to opportunities with corporate America. Large corporations and the Fortune 1000 have had programs for years to be inclusive of minority and women business enterprises, and Novoa was created specifically to help those corporations bring veterans into that same program. And so we work to certify those businesses are owned by vets and help them to be competitive for corporate contracts.

Lee Kantor: [00:01:08] So you’re kind of a matchmaker in that you’re letting these enterprise level companies know, hey, these people exist and you help these people. The smaller, midsized business owners that are veteran owned get certified to prove that they are who they say they are and then kind of match them with enterprise opportunities.

Matthew Pevelek: [00:01:26] Yeah, exactly. We kind of like to say we’re the match.com, if you will, of of this world. So we there are people that work within corporate America that are supplier diversity professionals. And their job is to find and help develop qualified, diverse vendors and then connect them to the buyers that buy the products and services that they sell. And so we have a tremendous relationship with the folks that represent these corporations and get to know them. And then we’re able to make those introductions to those companies that are trying to sell those products and services to those potential corporate customers. And so it is it’s a wonderful program, and it’s great to see that the corporate community has embraced veterans in every way imaginable as equal in terms of being a diverse business demographic.

Lee Kantor: [00:02:14] Now, these corporates, these large enterprises aren’t doing this totally altruistically, right? There’s some benefit for them to have some spend percentage for these diverse communities.

Matthew Pevelek: [00:02:28] Yeah, it’s definitely the right thing to do just to help empower diverse communities for sure. But it also is something that makes tremendous business sense. I know the Hackett Group did a study a couple of years ago that found for every $1.1 Billion that a corporation invested in supplier diversity returned at least one and one half million dollars in increased shareholder value. So there’s tremendous benefit to making sure that diverse communities know your company, they know your brand, and they understand that. And one of the best ways to do that is to empower diverse entrepreneurs to become successful suppliers to your company, because diverse suppliers hire more people that are diverse to work for their companies. So women hire women at a higher rate. And we know statistically that veteran owned companies hire 30% more veterans as employees than non veteran owned companies. So there’s a lot of advantage to making sure that you empower these communities to the corporate community that makes good business sense while you’re also doing something that’s really tremendous from a corporate citizenship perspective.

Lee Kantor: [00:03:28] Now, from when a veteran leaves the service and then goes in as a civilian, is there some sort of help to help them pursue an entrepreneurial path if they are so inclined? Or is that also part of your mission? Like how to? I would imagine because of their background, they are really good number one employees if they choose to go that path, but also really good entrepreneurs, if they choose to go that path based on their, you know, what they’ve been able to achieve in the military.

Matthew Pevelek: [00:03:56] Yeah, there’s actually a lot of different programs that are out there. So through a lot of grant funding through the US Small Business Administration, there’s all kinds of programs around the country. The Entrepreneurship Bootcamp for Veterans, there’s the Boots to Business Program, there’s the Boots, the contracts program that we work with. There’s a national network of veteran business outreach centers. There’s 34 of them now. I think they’re going to be increasing that number. So those are dedicated small business resource centers exclusively for veteran clients as well. And in addition, there’s other private sector programs. So one of our partner organizations is a group called Bunker Labs. They have a national network of startup incubators to help veteran businesses get started. So our most important mission is making those connections with the corporate customers. Not every veteran entrepreneur is going to want to try to sell to corporate America. Just as a point of comparison, there are 8 million women owned businesses nationwide, but there’s only about 16,000 certified women’s business enterprises that are actively pursuing corporate contracts. So clearly, it’s not going to be something that’s a great fit for every entrepreneur. And that’s why we work with these other organizations that help every veteran who wants to become a business owner in their post-military lives, that they can get the access to the things that they need and partner with the organizations specifically for those businesses that can benefit from a. We do that helps us connect with those companies, too. And so it’s a great way for us to introduce this because that’s one of the areas that we see as the biggest opportunity for growth for the veteran business community is truly understanding this corporate opportunity that’s out there, because most vets really don’t get that yet. We’re working on that.

Lee Kantor: [00:05:35] Right. And that’s one of those things where I would imagine that, like you said, the numbers are so minimal in terms of who have taken the leap to be certified. Because it isn’t it’s not just you go online and click three boxes and you’re certified like there are some vetting here that’s done and there is there is a hassle factor to get certified. It’s not so overwhelming that you shouldn’t consider it, but it is a little outside of what they do every day. But it’s one of those things that if you can pursue this and you really open yourself up to these corporate or enterprise level opportunities, it can change the trajectory of your business.

Matthew Pevelek: [00:06:16] Absolutely. And what’s a corporation gets a supplier that they really appreciate working with that helps them solve their problems. Then they’re going to continue to work with that supplier in many times and say, if you’ve proven yourself once, how about this? And they’ll continue to give you additional work and being a certified supplier, then that corporation can take credit for that in terms of their diversity and inclusion spending. And that’s just icing on the cake for them because that further reinforces them wanting to work with your company and to help them with that repeat business. So it’s never going to hurt your company and into your earlier point about the process of getting certified. It is a rigorous process. I don’t want to give anybody the impression that it’s just a self certification or a rubber stamp type of thing. You’re going to have to share an awful lot of information about your company because unfortunately, there are people that will misrepresent things and the corporate customer is not going to be able to report any spending in their annual reports or anything like that with your company as a diverse supplier, if you haven’t been third party certified and it is a rigorous process and I know a very good friend of mine who used to be the president of the National Women’s Council, she told me that 25 years ago when they started this, that every guy that had an honor system or a niece was a woman on business until they started to look carefully. So you do have to provide quite a bit of documentation and there’s a fee that has to be paid.

Matthew Pevelek: [00:07:41] But thankfully right now we have grant funding from Lowe’s, the National Home Improvement Retailer. So no veterans have to pay us to get certified right now. Normally they do. There is a fee and it can range from starting at $350. But thankfully, we don’t have to charge the veterans that fee because Lowe’s has decided to cover that cost for the next several hundred veterans at least to get certified, which we’re very grateful for. And our board recently passed a measure to make sure that our certification is good for three years. And so it’s one of those things that with other certifications, you have to renew it every year and you have to pay every year. So 4 hours, at least it’s free for now and it’s good for three years, something you don’t have to worry about. But ultimately, even if you’re renewing your women owned or minority owned certification for your corporate customers, this is a really valuable corporate service or a customer service to that corporate customer. So I really encourage businesses that are looking for these opportunities and do want to do business with these Fortune 500 companies. If you’re eligible, get your company certified. It is never going to be to a disadvantage and it really opens up doors to new opportunities and will be tremendous for the possibility of repeat long term business with these customers. Because once they once they get the usual suspects, they’d like to go back to the people they know. And contract renewal time comes and you build that trust and relationship and that certification really does help with that.

Lee Kantor: [00:09:03] And then these opportunities, you don’t have to national be necessarily a national organization. If you’re in a local market, there’s still opportunities in your local market as a certified veteran owned business, right? This isn’t something that, oh, I have to be a global company in order to benefit. There could be opportunities in your community.

Matthew Pevelek: [00:09:24] Absolutely. So I was down in your neck of the woods in Atlanta for the Veterans Entrepreneurship Forum in, I believe, April or May. And I met with a company called Clean Sleep, and they have this service where they they with ozone and ultra violet light and steam, they can sterilize mattresses and get them clean odor, free COVID, free and dry and ready to sleep on in 15 minutes. And so they’re trying to sell the service to the VA hospitals. And we were at the Doubletree Hotel or the Americas Hotel down there in Atlanta. And they said I said, who else could you sell the service to? I’m like, Oh, the hotels. And so I could talk to the manager of the hotel. I said, You could do that. Or I know the person who’s the national supplier diversity director for Hilton, which owns this particular location as well as all the others. And if they say that they want to do this because people are traveling again, your your service can help. Customers feel more safe and could be a competitive advantage for our hotels across the country. Maybe they’ll buy the service right away. And unlike the government, that’s going to take a while to get around to doing that years.

Matthew Pevelek: [00:10:29] In fact, if there’s something they don’t buy, especially already. So corporate America can buy it right now and you can have that connection to that person that will introduce you to those buyers. And if it’s something they see a real benefit with, let’s start it here in the Atlanta market where you’re located. And if we see potential, we can invest in your company to get the more capability to expand this in other areas. And so if there’s a way that you can be on being a diverse supplier opens you up to having that access to that supplier diversity person that’s going to help you navigate and find who that buyer is and advocate for you. And so it could be something that starts at the local level that turns out to be much, much more significant. Or it could just stay at that level. If you do parking lot snow removal services or you do lawn and lawn care services or window cleaning services, you never know. It could be something that you don’t have to be a massive national outfit to be eligible for, and you’re very much right about that.

Lee Kantor: [00:11:24] And then like you said, that once you kind of are plugged in there and you know the right people and have a champion, a lot of times those organizations are going to give you the roadmap to be successful. They want you to be successful because they have a good supplier on their hands that they don’t want to screw up. So they want to encourage you to have more opportunity and kind of give you the the playbook to really leverage their account.

Matthew Pevelek: [00:11:51] That’s exactly right. And so for the business owners that are out there, you know, the benefit of having a great employee and sometimes the the disadvantage of having a person, that’s not necessarily an ideal fit. So for when a corporation and a person who’s in charge of buying products and services to make sure that they’re able to do what they do. And so when you have a great supplier that you can count on all the time, it’s just like having a tremendous employee that you don’t want to lose them. And so you’ve become a critically valued member of their team once you become a good supplier that they can count on.

Lee Kantor: [00:12:26] So now when you’re running this organization and you’re working with both enterprise and corporate level people, but but also the entrepreneur who may be obviously isn’t as savvy and as knowledgeable, how do you kind of thread that needle? Are you spending a lot of your time educating the small to midsize business owner of Hey, this is how you leverage this opportunity or you having to network and kind of meet as many corporates as possible in order to, you know, it’s a chicken and the egg thing.

Matthew Pevelek: [00:12:56] Yeah, definitely. And in both directions for sure. So with the corporate side of things, thankfully the women business community is 25 years old this year and the national minority community is 50 years old this year. And so the idea of educating diverse suppliers and helping them be competitive and navigating corporate buying ecosystems, it’s been around for five decades now, so we don’t have to do a whole lot of educating on the corporate side. Advocating to make sure vets are part of it is something we have been doing aggressively since 2007. But thankfully the corporate world has really embraced veterans. And so in 2009, I did the research to see how many companies on the Fortune 500 had any mention of veterans, and it was 94 companies. Now, almost all of the Fortune 1000 have veterans mentioned as a diverse business demographic. Veterans are part of the National Business Inclusion Consortium, which is NOVA, represents better on that body, which is the entity that represents all of the diverse business demographics on a national scale. So we kind of have a unified voice. So in many ways the corporate side of it is really moving along very well. The challenge is the veterans side. So we have a lot of programs that help develop veteran businesses to be more competitive and be more successful. But the greatest challenge is getting them just to understand that there’s an opportunity out there, because as people are transitioning out of the military, they go through the transition assistance program and there are things. But there’s this notion that the government owes you a contract because the federal law requires the government to spend 3% with disabled veteran owned companies. And so a lot of vets really do look at the federal marketplace as like the end all, be all.

Matthew Pevelek: [00:14:40] And they don’t quite understand that there’s this much, much greater opportunity with literally a thousand companies on the Fortune 1000 that want to include them and give them an opportunity to compete and a special advantage compared to non-diverse companies. And so that’s our struggle, is helping vets understand that the government isn’t the only option. We always encourage them if they really want to do that and they think they compete for government contracts, do it. It’s a lucrative marketplace and it can be tremendously beneficial. And I know plenty of vets that have been very successful in that area, but to not consider the corporate world is very myopic and you should always diversify. Fire your prospective customers. And there’s a lot of advantages to the corporate world that you’re not going to see in the public sector world, specifically with that loyalty. The government isn’t necessarily bound or doesn’t necessarily have the same type of relationships with its suppliers because it’s an open, competitive marketplace where the bids all have to be bid out. It’s all public corporate contracts. They can’t keep that close to the vest. And so when they have a good supplier they like, they kind of keep that to themselves. And you certainly can’t access exactly what they’re buying, what they’re paying for, and all those things like you can with public contracts. So there’s a lot of advantage to the private sector world that that’s where it’s slowly changing. And then we’re very grateful for the folks at the US Small Business Administration and specifically the Office of Veterans Business Development. They really understand the critical role that the government can play in helping veterans understand this marketplace outside of the government, and they’re really making great strides in helping with that. And so we’re very grateful.

Lee Kantor: [00:16:11] Right. It’s something to remember when you’re a small business person. Time is money and the government moves at the speed of government and business moves at the speed of business. And that tends to be a lot faster. And they can make decisions. I mean, still, it takes a minute, but it’s a lot faster in business usually than it is when you’re working with the government.

Matthew Pevelek: [00:16:32] Absolutely. Shareholders can, if you can demonstrate that you can provide legitimate value cost savings, increased safety, increased productivity or efficiency, if there’s some way that you can help them impact shareholder value in a positive way, corporations can buy it very quickly and they can do that because it’s going to have tremendous impact right away. The government tends to buy what it buys when it buys it. And so even if you have something that they say, this is a great idea, we love it when Congress approves our next budget three years from now. We might include a line item for that and maybe buy it then. So very little discretionary funding for things that the government doesn’t buy. So it can be very beneficial for those that understand it and have been successful in that marketplace, but especially for people just getting started. You’re way, way more likely to be successful in private sector contracting than with the government side for sure.

Lee Kantor: [00:17:25] So now in your work and educating the veterans about these kind of opportunities, is that kind of the biggest need right now is just getting the word out for more and more veteran owned businesses to just be aware that Novoa is there to help them get certified if they would like to, but to educate them on all of the benefits of being certified, especially now you’ve removed the cost barrier, you’ve removed the time barrier in terms of now the certification is for three years. This seems like a no brainer for any veteran owned business.

Matthew Pevelek: [00:17:58] Yeah, in many ways I think that every veteran should at least explore it and consider it. But the point that I made earlier about the the women owned businesses and how most of them aren’t going to sell to corporate America, I don’t want vets to be under the impression that they have to get certified, because if you’re just trying to sell haircuts and pizzas on Main Street, getting certified to this standard is not necessary because it is rigorous and it’s an investment. If you want to do it, we’ll never turn a better in a way that wants to say, my company is certified by Nevada and some people really take pride in that and they want to have that certification. But it’s not critical. It’s not necessary. And so even if it’s free, we don’t want to tell every vet you have to go get certified by us because there’s money that could be used for some other company that can actually benefit from it. And so we don’t want people to say, well, I got this certification and really didn’t do anything for me. Well, if it’s not going to be a corporate customer that’s able to use it to report their spending with you, it isn’t necessary. And there’s other entities that will give you some validation. And for a lot of customers, if you just, you know, Shakey Jake’s barbershop in downtown Atlanta, then saying that you’re a marine Corps vet and that’s it, that’s that’s pretty much all you need. However, if you’re trying to get some significant contracts with Home Depot or Coca-Cola or something there in Atlanta and, you know, being a diverse supplier can be an advantage. That’s really a tremendous opportunity for that. And so we really do want to make sure that the veterans that can benefit understand it and all of them at least understand that there’s an opportunity out there to consider whether or not it’s right for their company.

Lee Kantor: [00:19:35] Now, before we wrap, do you have any advice for other association leaders that are kind of have an association like yours that is kind of a marketplace where you have a constituent that are the enterprise level folks and you have the small to midsize business folks who can both benefit. And then part of your mission is to kind of connect them together. There are some do’s and don’ts you can share for other association leaders.

Matthew Pevelek: [00:20:01] I would say the best thing you could do is listen to your people, listen to your stakeholders. And so one of the things that was really eye opening for me when we when the pandemic first set in and all of the companies were being closed in a lot of the. Stuff was beginning to shut down. There was a lot of confusion and there was a lot of interest on the corporate side of saying, what can we do to help small businesses? Because they did want to genuinely help. And people were coming up with grants and loans and money, ideas and things like that and trying to figure it out. So we sent out a survey to both communities asking what can what are we? What should we be doing? What can we do for you? Most importantly, for the veteran businesses, the theme was resounding. It’s like these corporations say they want to buy from our businesses. Just give us an opportunity to compete. Just do what you’ve always been doing. Let us keep the lights on. Let us keep our employees coming to work. And so give us an opportunity to compete for business. And so we created this Marching Forward Mondays program. So every Monday at two Eastern, we do a showcase where veteran businesses get to pitch their value proposition to our corporate allies. And it has led to direct business opportunities for a lot of folks.

Matthew Pevelek: [00:21:16] And so from the corporate side, that’s one of the things that we have to work with Lowe’s is they said, how can we do something that’s going to be meaningful and impactful? And to Lowe’s credit, they didn’t just give the money to us. They gave money to the minority and women and other diverse business communities. I don’t know exactly which communities all received funding, but I know that it went out to at least five or six different diverse business communities, including Nova, because that’s one of the things they wanted to do. Instead of giving a loan or grant to a handful of small businesses, they could give almost the entire diverse business community. Every one of them gets a little something. And so one less thing to worry about is maintaining your diversity certification. We’ll at least cover the cost for that for you. So and there’s already so much to deal with, but all of that came as a result of us communicating directly with our stakeholder communities and understanding what we could be doing better to serve them and how we could be the conduit to make those connections. And so the advice would be communication is key and and do it as often as you can and and take it as seriously as you can and what you hear back deliver on what those expectations are.

Lee Kantor: [00:22:25] Right. And this is one of those things that just because you’re certified, it’s not like an ATM machine that now you’re going to make money just because you went through that. You have to be good at what you do. You have to really be able to deliver the results in order to really leverage the most out of the certification.

Matthew Pevelek: [00:22:42] Yeah, it’s always a value add. It’s no no corporation or government for that matter. No customer is going to buy something from you based solely on who you are. It’s something that you have to demonstrate legitimate value. Corporations buy value, not status. But when you do provide value to them and they decide they’re going to work with your company and you happen to be a certified diverse supplier, that’s a tremendous value add. That really is something that they value as a nice customer service. They can then use that because they genuinely want to be inclusive of diverse businesses. And when you provide them that certificate as a customer service to them, then that’s helping them achieve another mission that they had. But the first and foremost is is keeping the the machine running, if you will, and keeping the supply chain as efficient as possible. So you’ve got to be provide value first. And then the certification thing is just a nice value add after the fact. And it really needs to be viewed as a customer service to really important customers of yours.

Lee Kantor: [00:23:44] Well, if somebody out there is a veteran owned business and wants to learn more about Nwaba or they are, you know, a large organization that wants to learn more about nouveau, but what is the website and the best way to connect with you or somebody on your team?

Matthew Pevelek: [00:23:57] Oh it’s great. So Nwaba dot org and everything is pretty straightforward. If you’re a corporate ally just click on Connect with US from a corporate perspective. And if you’re a veteran and you’re interested in getting certified, you can click on the VP certification information, everything that’s going to be required of you, the documents that you’ll have to submit, and everything that’s necessary for you to understand that is all laid out in the FAQs. And we have a very rigorous pre qualification process because we don’t want anybody to get started and get into the process that doesn’t know what they’re they’re jumping into and making sure that it’s truly right for them. And so all of that is very easy. Navigable on our home page there dot org.

Lee Kantor: [00:24:37] Well, Matt, thank you so much for sharing your story today. You’re doing important work and we appreciate you it’s one more time into Novoa dot org and a b.o.b a dot org. Matt Pavlik, thank you so much again for sharing your story.

Matthew Pevelek: [00:24:54] Thank you, lee.

Lee Kantor: [00:24:55] All right. This Lee Kantor, we will see all next time on the Association Leadership Radio.

Peggy Li With Peggy Li Creations

July 11, 2022 by Jacob Lapera

Bay Area Business Radio

Peggy Li With Peggy Li Creations

00:00 /

Peggy Li, Designer at Peggy Li Creations

Peggy Li Creations handmade jewelry is based out of San Francisco, CA. With jewelry designs seen in over a dozen TV shows, Peggy loves creating jewelry that is feminine and unique but with modern edge.

Connect with Peggy on Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter.

This transcript is machine transcribed by Sonix

TRANSCRIPT

Intro: [00:00:10] Broadcasting live from the Business RadioX studios in the Bay Area. It’s time for Bay Area Business Radio. Now here’s your host.

Lee Kantor: [00:00:22] Lee Kantor here another episode of Bay Area Business Radio, and this is going to be a good one. But before we get started, it’s important to recognize our sponsor, Lia Davis, coaching inspiring women of color to claim their wealth legacy. Today on Bay Area Business Radio. We have Peggy Li and she’s with Peggy Li Creations. Welcome, Peggy.

Peggy Li: [00:00:45] Thank you so much for having me.

Lee Kantor: [00:00:47] I’m so excited to learn what you’re up to. Tell us a little bit about Peggy Lee creations. How you serving folks?

Peggy Li: [00:00:54] I have a handmade jewelry business and I’ve been doing it for almost 20 years and it’s been a labor of love in my small business, baby.

Lee Kantor: [00:01:04] So how did you get involved in this kind of work? Were you always drawn to this type of creativity as you were a young person?

Peggy Li: [00:01:13] You know, my parents came here from Taiwan and I was born here. But they had expectations for me to be a doctor or a lawyer or scientist. So I actually went to school, U.C. Berkeley, for a science degree. But at the same time, I’d always been sort of crafty on the side and really had no interest in doing a creative field but didn’t want to disappoint my parents. But at the end of the day, after I graduated from college, I moved to Los Angeles to pursue a career in writing, and at the same time I was making jewelry for myself. It was a hobby that I really enjoyed. And people in L.A. on the street would would stop me and ask me where I got my jewelry. And eventually it sort of clicked in my head. I’m like, Huh, maybe. Maybe people like it. Maybe I can do something for this. So at the time I was writing, I was. This was at the time it was Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Right. And I got to meet the costume designer for the show. And after I did that assignment, I was thinking to myself, Hey, I’m making jewelry. Maybe. Maybe she would like to see it. Maybe she would like to use it on the show. And and I just dropped it in the mail and sent it off and forgot about it. And literally weeks later, I got a phone call and it was Cynthia Bergström, the costume designer for the show, and she said, Hey, Peggy, I hope you don’t mind, but I gave your name to a reporter from USA Today and we’re going to be using your jewelry on the next season of the show. They would love to talk to you, and that is how the business was born.

Lee Kantor: [00:02:53] So when you get an opportunity like that, are you able to kind of scale up fast enough? I would imagine that becomes a new problem. I mean, a different problem, but still a problem.

Peggy Li: [00:03:05] You know, at the time, I had never really thought of having a small business for myself. So it stayed a side hustle for a very long time. I mean, this was over 20 years ago, and the Internet was just becoming a new thing at the time. And it was a time where it wasn’t necessarily cool to have your products on television shows. But the way I sort of approach it was I loved working with creative people on TV and I was a fan of the show. So I reached out to fellow fans and and found that way to sort of reach customers. But at the time it was a side hustle. And it’s over time it’s grown very organically, and it’s still a small business to this day.

Lee Kantor: [00:03:53] And any advice for other creative people that are pursuing it? Is this this way seems to have worked pretty well for you. Is that the method you recommend others follow?

Peggy Li: [00:04:06] You know, I think everybody’s business journey is different. And it took a long time for me to sort of come to grips with the idea that it was a small business and it was something that I’m doing on my own. I think over the years I’ve had different opportunities to grow or scale the business, but it maybe wasn’t for me at the time, and those were opportunities that didn’t work out or I didn’t pursue. But I think it’s different for everyone. I think the most important thing is to try and become clear on your business goals. You know, one, I think it’s great to pursue your passions and things you’re interested in and and in that process to try and learn as much as you can about your craft, as well as look for people to be your mentors, look for other people doing things in the same sector that you admire and sort of see what they’re trying to figure out, what they’re doing and and see if those things fit what you want to do as well as then trying to. Set goals for yourself that are short term goals as well as long term goals, but also having shorter term goals. Different steps along the way. So you can stay motivated and reach certain milestones and really feel like you continue to grow. Because I think I see a lot of people who are like, Oh, I want to start this business and I want to be in every department store in the country. And while that’s a great goal and super ambitious, I think to stay motivated and to keep learning, you also have to have shorter term goals as well.

Lee Kantor: [00:05:40] Now when you have a business that is kind of where creativity is at the heart of it, pricing is very subjective and you could have picked a low number or a high number for pricing. It’s kind of whatever suits you and you feel comfortable with. How did you develop your pricing strategy? And I know this is an area a lot of creative people struggle with because it is so subjective and there doesn’t seem to be kind of a formula out there to kind of peg your pricing at other than whatever the market will bear. And then it’s hard to know what the market will bear until you actually put a price on something and then, you know, if it’ll bear out or not.

Peggy Li: [00:06:24] That’s a really interesting question. I mean, I actually think there are a lot of formulas out there and and a way to approach it is to sort of work backwards. You sort of know what kind of numbers you want to bring in or what makes it worthwhile for you. You also know your expenses and how much. If you’re making a physical product, you know how much you’re spending on materials as well as how much time you’re spending to create a certain product. So from that, you can sort of estimate what does it cost me to do something and then project like, okay, well then what? What do I need to bring in for this particular piece that makes it worth the time and effort and investment that you’re making in those products? So there’s formulas out there to help you calculate that for a physical product. But then, as you mentioned, there’s this sort of what the market will bear. And I think that dovetails into sort of like what you see, what you want your business to be. Who who are the customers that you want to reach and sort of what aspects of your brand are resonating with what kind of audience? And so, for example, I don’t do fine jewelry, which would be precious stones and precious metals. And if I did, it might be a different clientele than who I currently have, and that would justify sort of higher prices. The materials are more expensive automatically means the prices are going to be more expensive. And then there’s the creative intangibles where it’s like, Okay, what’s my design style? Does it evoke a certain feeling that you can’t find somewhere else? And so maybe that would justify you bumping up your prices a little bit because maybe you’re putting in some certain design touches or you work with your clients in a certain way that gives everybody has those intangibles that you can add to your product and to your brand.

Lee Kantor: [00:08:19] Well, a product like yours that appears on television shows, I mean, for sure, you can you could charge whatever you want from that standpoint. I mean.

Peggy Li: [00:08:29] Yes and no. I mean, I think you’d be surprised that a lot of people don’t know how the sausage is made. And they I’ve encountered fans of shows who are like, oh, I thought the actress went to Tiffany’s and bought all her jewelry. And that’s just not how it works, right? That’s a perception. But the reality is is very different. And also, you have fans of shows who. Nobody wants to feel like they have to spend thousands of dollars to get something that they they want to emulate. So it really depends.

Lee Kantor: [00:09:09] Right. Well, it depends on on what you as a brand, you know, how you want to position your self. I mean, and some people are fine saying, hey, we want this to be accessible for everybody. And that’s how we are. That’s our mission. That’s our purpose. And there’s others that say, look, this is a limited release. There’s six of these. So if you want it, you’re backing up the, you know, the money truck. If you want this, it’s it’s an exclusive piece for only a handful of people, and then they charge accordingly.

Peggy Li: [00:09:44] That’s certainly a way you can go about it. I think specifically for people who see my jewelry pieces on TV, they’re influenced a lot by who’s wearing it, the character that’s wearing it. So if the character is a working class woman, they don’t expect her to be wearing something that’s in real life worth tens of thousands of dollars or for example. So there are certain expectations that come with when people see what context people first encounter your brand and your content and your product in. So yeah. And you want to deliver value for the product. People know the difference between 14 karat gold and something and sterling silver.

Lee Kantor: [00:10:27] So what’s been your favorite part of this journey? I mean, you’ve had so many big wins in this regard. It would be hard for a lot of people to pick one. I mean, getting a product on a television show would be a dream of a lot of people, you know, just selling one piece of jewelry. It would be a dream for other people as well. So in this whole journey, what has been your favorite part?

Peggy Li: [00:10:51] I think the first time I saw my pieces on television and not only on TV, but on one of my favorite actresses and one of my favorite characters. That was a very surreal moment. I knew that something I’d created with my own two hands was suddenly like, Poof, there. Television that never gets that feeling, never gets old. That’s always amazing. As well as working with people in such a creative field has been really very cool. Occasionally I’ll get custom requests. They have a character or situation. They want a particular piece. So being able to work that way has been really, really rewarding. And I think now, now that I’m further along in my business, the ability to create designs and give back to the community has been very rewarding. So like the past few years with the pandemic and all the things going on in the world, I’ve been able to create some lines of jewelry that I am donating a portion of the profits to different charities that that I love, including World Central Kitchen, as well as the Go Fund Me Stop AAPI Hate Fund. So being able to tie my business and products back to causes that I love has been very rewarding as well.

Lee Kantor: [00:12:11] So now how do you see the business kind of evolving moving forward? What do you need more of and how can we help?

Peggy Li: [00:12:20] I mean, awareness is especially that I have these fundraising pieces is always a benefit. And, you know, the work the work never ends to sort of stay relevant and have your business out there. I will continue to work with different television shows and try and get my jewelry into the hands of costume designers because that’s sort of how my business started and it’s how I know to run it and grow it and as well as it’s something that I really enjoy. So for me, it’s about sort of staying, staying creative and working with creatives as well as reaching out to different fandoms as I as I encounter them and letting them know about my product.

Lee Kantor: [00:13:03] Well, congratulations on all the success. If somebody wants to learn more about your jewelry, what is the website?

Peggy Li: [00:13:12] The website is Peggy Lee dot com and that’s p g g y el i.

Lee Kantor: [00:13:21] Well, Peggy, thank you so much for sharing your story today. You’re doing such important work and we appreciate you.

Peggy Li: [00:13:27] Lee, thank you so much. It’s been a blast.

Lee Kantor: [00:13:29] All right. This is Lee Kantor. We’ll see you all next time on Bay Area Business Radio.

Giselle Mascarenhas With Latina Empire

July 8, 2022 by Jacob Lapera

South Florida Business Radio

Giselle Mascarenhas With Latina Empire

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Giselle Mascarenhas, COO at Latina Empire

Born and raised on the south Texas border, Giselle Mascarenhas-Villareal makes her living as an entrepreneur. Her entrepreneurial journey began as a Nightclub owner from 2000 to 2009. That transitioned into doing the work of a publicist for several years for some high-profile individuals she met in her time in the nightclub business, taking time to thoroughly perfect her process. After being inspired by the vast boom of social media, Giselle’s passion for small business inspired her to modernize her idea of personal branding in a way that was more accessible, and BOLD Insta-tute was born.

She spent many years teaching people how to harness the power of social media to build a personal brand of themselves before realizing her talents were more in tune elsewhere; helping people, more specifically women, realize their blockages and passions and urging them to live a more genuine life. This led her into roles such as Global Director and Chapter Co-Founder of San Antonio and RGV FemCity, where she actively creates a space where women can be empowered and connected to each other. More recently, Giselle continues to pursue her life’s purpose in the role of COO of Latina Empire and Love Soldiers Foundation.

Latina Empire is a revolutionary global women’s development initiative, serving as an incubator for women to harness the tools and systems they need to break their own glass ceilings, professionally and personally. Love Soldiers Foundation similarly serves as an incubator for non-profit organizations, nurturing them with seed funding and operational support until they can support themselves, then going out into the world and doing good.

On a more personal level, Giselle is also the Co-Owner of Intently Be, an organization that hosts intensive retreats for women, creating opportunities for women to connect deeply, get centered, and get to know themselves by diving deep into their souls. Giselle’s unique and perspective talents have been featured on Yahoo. Finance, Thrive Global, and Buzzfeed. She continues to pursue her life’s passion of helping others succeed on a global scale, always pushing boundaries on what it means to be purpose-driven.

Connect with Giselle on LinkedIn.

What You’ll Learn In This Episode

Dream, Creation, and Evolution of the Latina Empire

This transcript is machine transcribed by Sonix

TRANSCRIPT

Intro: [00:00:01] Broadcasting live from the Business RadioX studios in South Florida. It’s time for South Florida Business Radio. Now, here’s your host.

Lee Kantor: [00:00:13] The Lee Kantor here, another episode of South Florida Business Radio. And this is going to be a good one. Today on the show, we have Giselle Mascarenhas with Latina Empire. Welcome.

Giselle Mascarenhas: [00:00:26] Oh, thank you for having me. I’m so happy to be here.

Lee Kantor: [00:00:29] Well, I’m excited to learn what you’re up to. Tell us a little bit about Latina Empire. How are you serving folks?

Giselle Mascarenhas: [00:00:34] Oh, gosh, I love what we’re doing. Our founder, who you just told me was on your show recently. She is a multimillionaire at 35 who has a heart of gold. She knows what what Latina empire is is what she knows to be true and the fundamental of growing personally and professionally, which is healing your heart first so that you can be clear to challenge your mind. You’ve got to get out of your comfort zone so that you can be unapologetic about making money. It’s a process we all, like, show up to life with limitations that we’ve got to on an ongoing basis through accountability, through community, through nurturing, through coaching, need to be released. Like we need to be tapping into our heart to release those limitations so that we can grow to be who we’re meant to be and impact those that we serve.

Lee Kantor: [00:01:29] So why was it important to just create this community for Latinas? Like what kind of drew you to just that crowd or just started that crowd?

Giselle Mascarenhas: [00:01:41] That is such a great question because one, I want to clarify that, yes, it is called Latina Empire because the the women behind creating this. And the reason is because we are Latinas, because we are a I mean, at the end of the day, women sometimes we’re marginalized as Latino women. That happens a little more often as colored women know. So it was more of we can as a community together. There is nothing we can’t do together if we champion each other. But this is not just for Latinas. This is Latina empire, because we are a group of Latinas who built this with the vision of our founder that LatAm is, but we truly are for all women who are ready to go to to to grow personally and professionally and know that they need help in doing that.

Lee Kantor: [00:02:35] Now, can you explain to the listener what a person, how do they benefit by becoming part of this community? What are some of the things that are maybe tangible in terms of, okay, you get these benefits or an intangible in terms of, hey, you know what, you got a lot of people watching you back or holding you accountable or helping you get to a new level.

Giselle Mascarenhas: [00:02:59] Well, let me be real clear on we fill a void that exists in the life coaching market and in the women empowerment market. In the life coaching market, it is not accessible to everyone. You know, life coaching can start at about $150 an hour or 200, 250 and go up from there. Right. It’s not that these coaches aren’t they don’t deserve that or they’re not a value. But honestly, we all need life coaching. We all need to be coached to to live in our purpose. But half the time, 99.9% of the time and I made this up myself, the 99.9%. But a lot of the time, we as women, as humans, we don’t even understand what our limitations are. And we don’t even understand how to answer the question, who are we like? Who am I? Ask yourself that. And so what we do is we make life coaching accessible. So our membership starts at $47 and it is we build this community through the virtual for the through. It’s called a mana lounge, but we nurture in our empires cocktails every month so we can come together and we can collaborate and connect. And we also then have programs in every single one of our empires, which has to do with the proprietary process of healing your heart, which is our clarity program, our crystal program, challenging the mind, which happens to be, you know, who you are now because you’ve gone through these programs. You have the community to push you, you have the coaches to push you there at a at an accessible rate.

Giselle Mascarenhas: [00:04:35] Right. At a price that most people can, can, can afford. Now, you need to start investing in yourself to push yourself outside of the limits that you put on yourself, because now you know where you want to go. And then it just goes on from there, because we truly believe that success is defined by the individual. You know, I think you would agree with that, right? Like my success is not your success. My success is not your wife’s success. Like, we all are defined very differently. But if we don’t know what success like what we’re striving for, we’re never going to get there. And that’s what we help you do. We help you do it. With like in an accessible way in the in the women empowerment space. The thing is, you go to these events and super awesome and you’re pumped up and then you leave. And then what? Where is the accountability? Who is going to be pushing you outside your comfort zone? What are the programs and the resources available so that you can keep implementing what you learned or that feeling that you had when you were around that community? So we were really working hard and honestly, we are we are a startup and we are going to do everything we can by listening to our members on pivoting and changing to meet our promise to help them develop personally and professionally.

Lee Kantor: [00:05:57] Now, you mentioned there are some in-person, there’s some virtual. I know you’re in quite a few markets right now in the United States is the dream to become like have hyper local chapters around the country? Is that how you see this evolving?

Giselle Mascarenhas: [00:06:11] Absolutely. Actually, globally. So we launch Mexico next year and then at the end of that year, and this is with our projections, projections, meeting our projections, we launch Europe by the end of next year. Yeah. And so that is our focus. We want to have empires with where we’re developing our leaders so that they can serve the members at that capacity, giving them the resources, giving them the accountability, and us helping in doing that by focusing on one leader who’s focusing on building that empire in hyper focused areas like Miami, like we’re going to be in Miami on Saturday.

Lee Kantor: [00:06:51] And then when someone goes to the event on Saturday, what can they expect?

Giselle Mascarenhas: [00:06:56] So our program on Saturday is called Clarity. This is where they can expect to truly dig in deep with our executive coach, Alexa, who is going to be helping people answer that question that we started the show off with, like, who are you like? Who am I? What am I meant to be doing here? Like what? What fills my soul? And how can I actually make money from from who I am fundamentally and how I want to impact the world? Like, you’ve got to get really, really granular into that so that you are living your purpose and you are living a life that that you feel like you’re thriving in. That’s what they’re going to be doing on Saturday.

Lee Kantor: [00:07:38] Now is a community primarily made up of people that have a dream. Maybe aspirationally would like to be an entrepreneur and like to build an empire, or is already people that have already achieved a certain level of success or may be frustrated or plateaued and need help getting to a new level. Is it a combination?

Giselle Mascarenhas: [00:07:57] This is such a great question because it’s the latter. It’s a combination. Honestly, it’s anyone seeking for more. They have this pool in their heart and their chest that that they know. Like there’s more there’s more than this. And it could be personally, like, I know, I know of of people who are billionaires who don’t feel complete. And because it has nothing to do with money, it literally has everything to do. The abundance that we the success that we achieve and the abundance that we feel starts in our mind. Like it starts on how we perceive the world it starts and how we’re impacting the people around us. So it definitely is people seeking. It’s really so varied on the demographic of who that woman is. It really is that woman what they share that common thread of their seeking to know who they are. They’re seeking for more. They’re seeking to be like to create a legacy. That is the woman that that that we attract.

Lee Kantor: [00:09:03] Now, are you finding that especially coming out of the pandemic nowadays, that there are more and more people that are just tired of waiting and they want to lead that purpose driven life and they’re not waiting for someone’s permission anymore. They’re not waiting for an opportunity. They say, I’m going to make my own opportunity.

Giselle Mascarenhas: [00:09:25] Yes, that is that that that has been something that has been developing slowly, because people have been questioning why are we so polarized? Why does it feel so dark? Like, why is everything so difficult? But truly, it’s a mindset that is like it’s it’s feeding our brains depending on what we’re clicking on on social media. It’s feeding our brains depending on what news channel you’re watching. Right. And we’re tired of it. We know that life is what we make of it. But the question of how how do we live a purpose driven life is what we want to help people attain. We want to help them get to that answer.

Lee Kantor: [00:10:07] And it is a dream that can come true. This doesn’t have to be an impossible dream.

Giselle Mascarenhas: [00:10:11] It it it honestly is a choice. Choose to be. Choose to be fighting like heck, to live a purpose driven life. And it’s okay. Give yourself grace to know that you aren’t supposed to know until you know. It’s really that simple, but it takes a lot of work on your part to change your mindset, to work every day like, Hey, wait, where is this coming from? It does. Is this the reality? I feel this way. Wait, is this just because it’s a habit? Can I choose to see a different perspective? Can I see this instead of as a failure, as a lesson, so that I can be more be better, impact others with this story. It really is a mindset of choosing to put you first because you are worthy exactly who you are and where you find yourself today.

Lee Kantor: [00:11:07] Now, in your background, you spent a lot of time in and around personal branding. Do you have any advice for the listener right now that that’s maybe just kind of kicking the tires of of Latina empire, maybe not ready to go all the way in, but just some piece of advice that’s maybe actionable right this second, what they can be doing today that can help them get a clearer view of their personal brand and how to kind of live their best life.

Giselle Mascarenhas: [00:11:37] One, I believe that you need to start to have a morning routine of sitting still and and every day asking your question, like yesterday, what gave me joy, what felt really good? Sometimes it could be a phone call that you received that made you smile. Dig in. Why? Why did it make you smile? Why did you hang up the phone and feel good about yourself or felt like you created something? Did you create a connection? Did you help them with a with a nice word? Did they see you for you, like who you really are? And that doesn’t happen very often. Like start to dig in deep with what makes you come alive, what makes your heart really, really full and chubby. Like what? What gives you joy? And start to write those things down every single morning. Why? Because it’s going to start opening up your world for more of it. One, two. You’re going to start working towards having more of that in your life. Three, you’re going to start really opening up to receive more resources, more friends, more opportunity. That has more to do with who you are fundamentally, instead of who you’ve been creating yourself to be that isn’t aligned with your values. That’s that’s where I think that people should start and that it’s you’re going to see a difference in freaking the first day, but you’re going to see a difference really fast.

Lee Kantor: [00:13:09] Yeah, it’s one of those things when you get clear on your true North, then decisions become a lot easier because it’s either helping you get there or it’s not, and it becomes pretty binary.

Giselle Mascarenhas: [00:13:20] You’re absolutely right. If people would just stop for a second every time they feel great or horrible and ask themselves, Wait, why? Why do I feel great? Why do I feel horrible? And maybe sometimes the answer is going to be like, Do I really need to have that person in my life? Do I really need to be doing this? Do I really need to be saying yes to going to to volunteer and do this when it’s not even filling my soul? It’s not something that I’m I’m passionate about. Like it’s okay to give yourself grace to stop and really figure out what makes you thrive. If you are living in a space that you are proud of, that you feel like you’re doing good, that you come alive in you are impacting the lives around you just with being you.

Lee Kantor: [00:14:07] So if somebody wants to plug in to the Latina empire, maybe get involved with this event on Saturday in South Florida and or just learn more about the opportunity and seeing, you know, all that that it has to offer. What’s the website or the best way to get connected?

Giselle Mascarenhas: [00:14:25] Absolutely. I’m going to make it super easy. The Latina empire across all social media’s and the website, that’s where you can find us. And if you want to find me and ask me anything, I am an open book and I am absolutely approachable. It’s the Latina empire. C Oh.

Lee Kantor: [00:14:43] Good stuff. Well, thank you so much for sharing your story today. You’re doing such important work and we appreciate you.

Giselle Mascarenhas: [00:14:50] I appreciate you. Thank you for this time. Thank you for allowing me to share what we’re doing with the world. I appreciate you.

Lee Kantor: [00:14:56] All right. This is Lee Kantor. We will see you all next time on South Florida Business Radio.

Spark Stories Episode 15

July 8, 2022 by Jacob Lapera

Spark Stories

Spark Stories Episode 15

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Marisa Jones, is a teacher, community builder and Mindset Coach. After leading a successful career as an architect and strategic advisor leading global multimillion dollar technology projects, she published her memoir “The Lotus Tattoo: One Woman’s Grit from Bully to Redemption” in 2019 and now focuses on helping women balance mental health challenges with career success.

Marisa’s signature program is for those seeking to find their purpose and authenticity in life. A 6-month intensive bootcamp, “Mindset Warrior: The Art of Intentional Thinking” focuses on healing the long-term effects of trauma and the behaviors, patterns, and decisions we make stemming from our childhood imprint.

This transcript is machine transcribed by Sonix

TRANSCRIPT

Dr. Clarissa J. Sparks: Welcome to spark stories like business radio brought to you by the Atlanta Business Radio Network. Every week, entrepreneurs and experts share the stories behind the brand who they are, what they do, and why their brands matter. I’m your host, Clarissa de Sparks. In our own series, we dive into the everyday operations of inspiring small business owners in our community. You can listen live on Saturdays at 10 a.m. or the rebroadcast at WW dot Business RadioX dot com. Today we’re going to talk about what brands need to know about mental health. Please allow me to introduce you to one of our amazing community leaders who owns it, Marissa Jones. Marissa is a teacher, community builder and mindset coach. After leading a successful career as an architect and strategic advisor, leading global multimillion dollar technology projects, she published her memoir, The Lotus Tattoo One Woman’s Grit From Bully to Redemption and 2019 and Now focuses on helping women balance mental health challenges with career success. Marissa signature program is for those seeking to find their purpose and authentic authenticity in life. She offers a six month intensive boot camp mindset warrior, The Art of Intentional Thinking, which focuses on healing, the long term effects of trauma and the behaviors, patterns and decisions we make stemming from our childhood imprint. Marissa is taking the step to launch your company, your brave in the world of entrepreneurship. I have three questions. Please tell our listeners who you are, what you do, and why your brand matters. So please introduce yourself.

Marisa Jones: Hi, Clarissa. Thank you so much for having me on the show. I’m so excited. So I am Rhys-jones and I am a mindset coach. I’m an author and I’m a community builder where I love to build communities around mental health and just having discussions around the topic of mental health, depression, suicidal ideation, PTSD, any, any individual who’s gone through or whether it’s high school kids, because I used to be a bully myself when I was a child, whether it’s veterans, because the impacts of trauma are the same no matter who you are, right? If you’ve experienced trauma, the impacts might be more extreme in one individual or another, but most of the impacts are the same. And it’s the depression, it’s the mental illness, it’s the the PTSD and suicidal ideations and so forth. And so I help women. I focus on women because I have a professional corporate background, 30 years in corporate I.T. and I love to focus on women because I found that in my career and my industry, there were very few women that I had as mentors, and there was very few women that I could look up to. And the higher I got up in the corporate ladder, the harder it was for me to find someone that was like minded that I can go to for support. And especially when I was going through my own mental health issues during my career, I didn’t feel like I had anyone to reach out to. So that’s who I am and my brand matters because mental health is really, really important to me. And I want to make sure that my branding comes across as very caring.

Dr. Clarissa J. Sparks: Right.

Marisa Jones: And someone who brings people together to have discussions around the importance of talking about mental health.

Dr. Clarissa J. Sparks: Yeah, mental health is a big topic and focus in conversation nationally and at the local level. What advice would you share with women who are just starting out on the journey of entrepreneurship or even are in the early stages? How does mental health impact? Building a brand.

Marisa Jones: Well, you have to be strong. You have to have a strong mental health support system. And so that includes so when you’re building a brand and you’re building a business, you’re working 24 seven, you’re trying to figure out who you are, what your values are, mission is who you’re trying to help. And there’s so many aspects to it. On top of not only deciding what services you need to provide, but how you’re going to show yourself to the world, right? So that you can attract people to you. And, and then you have to learn marketing on top of that. So all of that is really, really stressful. And so trying to trying to maintain good mental health is really important while you’re trying to build your business. If you don’t have that, the self doubt kicks in the the talking of telling yourself that you’re never going to make it. Telling yourself there’s thousands of coaches out there. What makes me so special? Why would someone want to hire me? And so you don’t have to be always on top of your game, right? There’s days that I get depressed. There’s days that life hits me hard. And and I just. I don’t want to do anything. I’m not motivated or I’m sulking or, you know, outside triggers impact me. But I have the resources to go to that I’ve created for myself, whether they’re journaling, whether it’s journaling, meditation, going for a walk or reaching out to my therapist or a friend or, you know, just knowing that you have resources and having a good support system around you is really, really important when you’re trying to build a business and a brand.

Dr. Clarissa J. Sparks: Now, you just mentioned something that I think still has a stigma in the particularly the African American community. Seeking out therapy, seeing a therapist. What point in your life did you say, I need professional help?

Marisa Jones: So I’ve been to a therapist a couple of times in the past. One time, the first time I had gone to a therapist, it was I was having some infertility issues. And and I, you know, I had lost some pregnancies. And I was and I got really depressed. And I went to a therapist and I never thought I would go to a therapist because we didn’t talk about going to therapy. And it was like, you got to be really crazy to go through a therapist. I had an aunt growing up who she was, you know, she had depression and she was always in and out of what they call the sanatorium in New York because of her depression. So I didn’t want to be labeled, but then I didn’t really think it helped me at the time. So then the second time was when I was going through a divorce. And again, I didn’t feel like the therapist really understood me at the time. But then. I found out, you know, just during the pandemic, I was going through some workplace bullying. Ironically, because I was publishing my memoir about being a bully, but I was being harassed and discriminated at at my work environment. And I fell into a depression. I hadn’t had depression in about ten years. And so I fell into a depression. I started getting suicidal ideation began. And I realized because I had spent the past traumas, I knew I needed to jump on it. I knew I needed to get a head start so that it didn’t catch up to me like it did.

Dr. Clarissa J. Sparks: The lazy.

Marisa Jones: Therapist. So we have to really we have to trust someone to be able to do that, to go through the process. But I would have to say the biggest thing is you have to be honest, because if you’re not honest with your therapist, you’re not going to get the help that you that you need.

Dr. Clarissa J. Sparks: Okay. Now, in your case, you are a life coach. So can you tell us the difference between a life coach and a therapist?

Marisa Jones: So I actually call myself a mindset coach. So life coach is very different because a life coach will help someone. A life coach will help someone kind of make decisions about what they want to do with their life. Right. And it’s more of a they’re not they’re guiding someone through questions to help them make their own decisions to move forward. A therapist is someone who focuses on one issue. So if you go to a therapist like I went to a therapist for my infertility issues. So the whole time I was going to my therapist, it was to talk about my infertility issues and the depression I had around that. When I was going through a divorce, I was focused strictly on the divorce. So they’re usually there to solve one problem. A mindset coach is something that I developed my own program for Mindset Coach. So when I looked at certifications for coaching, there was nothing that fit my style of what I was teaching. And so what I do is I literally help women go through and pretty much dissect their entire life and and I help them define their life story, timeline and every single life impact that’s impacted them to this day. So usually I pick the top ten and then we dissect it further and we go to the next level and we say, okay, well, what, what patterns and behaviors do you carry today because of this impact, you know, when you were younger? And then I continue doing that.

Marisa Jones: And what I do is I dissect it where I identify expectations they have from those imprints, values they have discovered through those imprints. And once I help them uncover that who they are, they start to have this awareness of what what makes them tick, what makes them move, why they make decisions the way they do. And so from a mindset perspective, everything is about awareness of who you are, right? So every decision I make, every move I make, everything that I do, all my emotions, all my my thinking is because of what’s been imprinted on me when I was a child. And so all I’m doing is uncovering that because you don’t realize why you do things sometimes. And so I might make decisions that don’t serve me because I don’t really know what the hidden expectations or values are underneath it. But when I really what I really do is I bring awareness to somebody’s full being so that they can start moving forward based on who they really are authentically and how they move through the world. So I try to just change their perspective from who they are and how they interact with the world.

Dr. Clarissa J. Sparks: So it is a visual thinking.

Marisa Jones: It’s very intentional thinking because I have them think very mindfully everything that they do. And it’s so funny because my clients tell me all the time, I never used the word intentional thinking, but they start telling me usually by month two or three, they start telling me I was very intentional in how I was doing this. But these are their own words. I was very you would have been proud of me. I spent quality time. I was very mindful. I was spending time with my kids. I didn’t have my phone with me. I wasn’t multitasking. I was enjoying the moment. It was very intentional, right? So that’s what their behaviors are changing because they’re literally interacting with the world and the people around them very differently just by changing their mindset because of that awareness. Okay.

Dr. Clarissa J. Sparks: So when starting your business or writing your book. What has been the greatest learning from all from those two major accomplishments?

Marisa Jones: Oh, boy. Good question. I would say for my book, the biggest thing I learned was I was already healed when I wrote my book. So it wasn’t like a cathartic thing that a lot of people go through. What I did learn was how much my life paralleled my mom’s life. So there were so many things that I realized when I was writing my story. My mom and I are very, very different people and I love my mom. But she’s a Sicilian immigrant. She’s shorter than me, right? She’s from Italy, from Sicily, you know, speaks broken English, very, very eighth grade education, very different. And yet we lived parallel lives when I think about her journey from moving to America and what happened, and then she was in an abusive marriage and her whole journey, it was it was really surprising that I really followed her journey very similarly, even though I lived a completely different life. So that was an eye opener to me for my book. The second thing was how many people came to me and started telling me their deepest, darkest skeletons in their closet. I did not expect the box. Open up the box. And that’s actually what led me to start my business, because I wasn’t thinking of starting a business when I was publishing my book.

Dr. Clarissa J. Sparks: So the book business came after the book.

Marisa Jones: Yeah. So I published my book and as I was going through the process of publishing my book, I started having now I knew I was going to work with domestic violence centers and trauma centers for mental health. So I talk about branding. I hired professional branding companies to help me come up with my logo, the colors, everything about it. You know, you see the logo on the on where it says everyday being and the first it’s because I’m always doing this like I just loved it. I’m always like, Yeah, let’s do it. Like that’s just who I am. So it was really important that I that the colors were important. My editing, I went through a total of three paid editors for my book Buy whole process for my book cost me $12,000. It was, it was. It wasn’t. I wanted it to be professional because I knew who I wanted to serve with my book. So I donate my book often to like domestic violence shelters for like fundraisers, organizations that that help women survivors and stuff like that. So I knew I wanted it to be professional in that aspect. But, you know, when I started to publish my book, something completely different came out of it. And that was that all my colleagues, all of my girlfriends who are doctors and lawyers and professional career women and even men started coming to me and telling me their stories because, you know, my life has been very colorful.

Marisa Jones: Like, you know, I did a lot of drugs and I went to infertility and I’ve been through two divorces and, you know, I was abused and I was a bully. I mean, the list goes on and on and on. Right? But the whole time I hid it and I was very professional and I had a career, a very successful career in technology because that was the survivor in me trying to make something happen. And so people resonated with different parts of my book. And I had male colleagues telling me, you know, I’m in AA. No one here knows about it. Right? I had women telling me that they had several miscarriages and they’re depressed. And I’ve had other like all these stories start coming out and I thought, wow, this is really powerful. And I found myself just coaching them like just, you know, just talking to them. And I was always a corporate mentor, but I started getting more personal in how I was responding and telling, you know, they were asking me for advice and that’s what led me to start my business. And I decided I need to put together a coaching program. I need to help others experience healing because there’s a lot of hurt people out there.

Dr. Clarissa J. Sparks: There’s a lot of listeners out there who are often in transition and they think about the pivot. So it’s interesting how you pivot it from that corporate space into the entrepreneur space. Now, are you doing are you still doing the best, the best of both worlds, or have you made a full leap into entrepreneurship?

Marisa Jones: So it’s a little bit of both. So right now, so I did I’ve taken time off. So when COVID hit, I left a toxic work environment and then I took a year off and I focused on my business. And then I picked up a. Another so so I can do it pretty much any time. So I picked up a project last year that I worked on for about eight months. Then I took a couple of months off. I just picked up another I.T. project, so I get to do it at my leisure. I wouldn’t say leisure, but I get to do it when I when I need to to bring in extra income until, you know, because my business is new. I only started in October of 2019. I published my memoir and then COVID hit. So I had all these speaking engagements online. I was going to do live workshops and talk about I had talks about mental health, I had talked about being a bully and then COVID hit. So I did have to pivot and I thought, What am I going to do now? And so I thought about, you know, in it my skill sets were teaching workshops and, you know, speaking at conferences. And I thought, well, I’m just going to go online. I didn’t want to stop, you know, I, I thought about stopping, but then it started dragging on and I thought, I can’t sit around, I have to do something. And so that’s when I went online.

Dr. Clarissa J. Sparks: I think that’s so important to know that you have to keep moving. You have to. It’s even when you’re in transition, still doing something to focus because, you know, if you stop, it’s hard to restart.

Marisa Jones: Yes. It’s like going to the gym, right. You stopped going for a week and then you never go again.

Dr. Clarissa J. Sparks: And then you never go again. So you have to use those self motivating to keep you going, to keep that spark, to keep you ignited and going, going after your passion because everyone has a story to tell. And if you’re willing and vulnerable enough to share your story, it’s amazing how many lives you can impact. Like you said, you have people coming to you and sharing their darkest secrets, and that’s just a part of the reward that you get for following your purpose.

Marisa Jones: It definitely feels like it’s my purpose.

Dr. Clarissa J. Sparks: Yeah. And, you know, and having, you know, we learn from our past experiences and that’s what shapes us and creates us and who we are and who we’re becoming and giving ourselves that permission. And I know sometimes it’s entrepreneurs. We don’t give ourselves that permission. So what advice would you give someone who’s just starting out or who has an idea and possibly they’ve already stopped?

Marisa Jones: I keep going, I’ll tell you. So there are days that I’ve had where it was really difficult because I had outside impacts, personal stuff that was going on that didn’t I didn’t want to I wasn’t motivated. Right. And it’s like, I don’t want to go, I don’t want to do this. But I always say to myself, Just do 5 minutes. Just do 5 minutes. Because once you it might take 3 hours to get to the 5 minutes. But if you can get to that 5 minutes before the day is over, that 5 minutes will turn into an hour or maybe 2 hours and you’ll have gotten something done. Yes. And so for me, that’s my challenge all the time. If I don’t feel up to it, I say just get 5 minutes. But I would say the second most important thing is you don’t have to know everything in.

Dr. Clarissa J. Sparks: What you’re doing. That’s good advice.

Marisa Jones: You just you just have to be one step ahead of the person who needs your help. That’s all right. You just have to be one step ahead of the person who’s looking for your help.

Dr. Clarissa J. Sparks: When they’re looking for that help, what what challenges have surprised you the most in your in these last since 2019?

Marisa Jones: Oh, boy. It seems like it’s longer. I would say the challenge is the marketing. I’m just I do not like marketing. So I count on people who really know branding and marketing and all of that. The biggest challenge is doing things that I don’t want to do, you know, as part of the business, like, you know, doing, doing the minutia, stuff like doing the administrative stuff because I just want to do what I love. I love coaching, I love coaching, I love being with clients, you know, the business stuff. I just want to take my brain and dump it and give it to somebody else. I’ve had to hire people, you know, to help out, even when I couldn’t afford it because I didn’t have the time. So I hire people and in spurts, you know, I hire coaches, I hire Vas. You know, I don’t keep them on staff all the time. You know, that’s one thing that people think that they have to do. They have to have a full team around them all the time. You just hire people when you need them, right? And that’s it. Because there’s always somebody out there. And just think about you’re helping somebody who’s trying to run their business that may need your help. Right? If you call a VA and say, I need you for three weeks, maybe they’ve been begging for somebody, maybe they’ve been praying for you or for a new client. You just never know is going to help them, right? So we’re all just helping each other out, right? It’s just energy flow. And so, you know, it’s really important when when you come across those challenges to think about what really you can let go of and get some people to help you out.

Dr. Clarissa J. Sparks: That’s really good. Marisa How I’m all about community and main community focus. How can my community help support your community?

Marisa Jones: Oh, boy, that’s a great question. You know, just just sharing sharing the discussions on mental health. Talking about mental health, you know, just this, you know, I just started a podcast, Women SEO and Reflection. So you’re women entrepreneurs. There’s a lot of great women such as yourself who who are guests and talking about their their journeys with personal growth and mental health. So I think, you know, sharing that it’s hearing other women, I think is really important, hearing other women’s stories and hearing other women, you know, what their challenge is and running businesses and and just just the challenges of life. Right. And so anything that you can do to share what I’m doing would be really helpful. I love I love building communities. As you can see, it’s in my I definitely put that in there. I love connecting people. I love, you know, introducing people who can help each other out because it’s a big world. And we say it’s a small world, but it’s a big world, so let’s help connect each other.

Dr. Clarissa J. Sparks: So that leads into the last question. How can we learn more about you and your journey?

Marisa Jones: All right. So I have a website and it’s called My Every Day Being Bianca, my everyday being dot com, every day being. It’s about getting up every day and defining who you want to be and every day you get to choose. So my website is all about just resources. There’s blogs, there’s recipes, healthy recipes, because what you eat healthy mind equals healthy food equals healthy mind. So my everyday being dot com on LinkedIn under Marissa Jones and I have a Facebook as well every day my every day being so find me and yeah and look for my podcast women CEO and Reflection which launches in two weeks.

Dr. Clarissa J. Sparks: All right. Sounds good. Well, thank you for sharing who you are, what you do, and why your brand matters. Here on Spark Stories, we celebrate business owners today and every day. So listeners, please remember to support your local businesses and express your support by liking their social media platforms. So I want everyone to create a great day. Thank you.

Marisa Jones: Thank you. Thanks, Clarissa.

Dr. Clarissa J. Sparks: Thanks.

About Your Host

Dr. Clarissa J. Sparks is a personal brand strategist, trainer, mentor, and investor for women entrepreneurs. She is the founder of She Sparks, a brand strategy design consultancy.

Using her ten-plus years of branding & marketing experience, Dr. Sparks has supported over 4,000 women entrepreneurs in gaining clarity on who they are, what they do, and how they can brand, market, and grow their businesses. Using her Brand Thinking™ Blueprint & Action Plan she gives entrepreneurs the resources and support they need to become the go-to expert in their industry.

Follow Dr. Clarissa Sparks on LinkedIn, Twitter, Instagram and Facebook.

Moh Noori with ScriptChain Health

July 7, 2022 by Jacob Lapera

Startup Showdown Podcast

Moh Noori with ScriptChain Health

00:00 /

Moh Noori is an underrepresented Founder of ScriptChain Health who is very passionate, driven and a visionary when it comes to reimagining healthcare in the world.

He received a BS in Information Systems and Business Management and a MBA concentration in Data Analytics from Boston College.

Moh is experienced in working for tech and biotech companies by building efficient products that stakeholders love. He is a 3x Founder where he started two successful small businesses in the detailing and maintenance business.

This is the first startup that Moh has founded in the digital health space, but he has worked for a medical device company called Cutera.

Connect with Moh on LinkedIn and Twitter.

What You’ll Learn in This Episode

Moh’s thoughts on the healthcare industry
Moh’s experience in fundraising
What ScriptChain Health does
The benefits to using ScriptChain Health

This transcript is machine transcribed by Sonix

TRANSCRIPT

Intro: [00:00:04] We’ll come back to the Startup Showdown podcast, where we discuss pitching, funding and scaling startups. Join us as we interview winners, mentors and judges of the monthly $120,000 pitch competition powered by Panoramic Ventures. We also discuss the latest updates in software web3, health care, tech, fintech and more. Now sit tight as we interview this week’s guest and their journey through entrepreneurship.

Lee Kantor: [00:00:38] Lee Kantor here another episode of Startup Showdown, and this is going to be a fun one. But before we get started, it’s important to recognize our sponsor Panoramic Ventures. Without them, we couldn’t be sharing these important stories. Today on Startup Showdown, we have Moh Noori with ScriptChain Health. Welcome Moh.

Moh Noori: [00:00:56] Thank you for having me, Lee.

Lee Kantor: [00:00:57] Well, I’m excited to learn what you’re up to. Tell us a little bit about script chain health. How you serving folks?

Moh Noori: [00:01:03] Yeah, definitely. So scripting health is a digital health startup that uses artificial intelligence for cardiovascular disease and readmission prevention by optimizing the point of care for the patient at the time of admission.

Lee Kantor: [00:01:20] So how did you kind of decide to go in this direction? What was the genesis of the idea?

Moh Noori: [00:01:28] Definitely so. Growing up, my mother and my grandmother raised me and everything like that. And as I started to get a little older, I started to notice that my mother, my grandmother’s health started to deteriorate very slowly. Over the years, I saw that she became more and more unhealthy, and it got to a point where she needed assistance to actually walk. I found out that she was suffering from cardiovascular disease, and one morning back in 1999, we all woke up and received the call that nobody in the world wants to receive, which is that my grandmother passed away at that time. I have never experienced my heart drop so fast in my life until that morning, and it was excruciatingly painful, especially with my grandmother who really raised me. I mean, every single day she was there. And I really thought to myself that why wasn’t this illness? Preventable. Why didn’t why we. Why weren’t we able to predict this illness from from occurring? Because I know that we could have alleviated some of the issues to to really intervene at an early stage. And fast forward to when I got to Boston College, while I was pursuing my MBA concentration in data analytics, I started to really look into how large of a problem this actually is. And I found that that the number one cause of death in the United States and the entire world. Us death toll to around 700,000 deaths a year annually. Globally you’re looking at over 18 million.

Lee Kantor: [00:03:24] So how did you. But how did you connect the dots and say, you know what, there’s a ton of data. And this is a major problem. There must be a way to kind of connect some dots here to say this. If we do this here at this point, maybe we can prevent a portion of these. Or if we do this here, after you’ve done this, then maybe that’ll prevent some and then we can kind of lower that number a bit.

Moh Noori: [00:03:48] Definitely. And you know, when I was in the ideation and the market research mode, I started to figure out that artificial intelligence is growing at a 50% compound annual growth rate within health care. And since I was growing so significantly in the health care industry just because of the vast resources of medical data out there, I was thinking that it might be a very, very strong solution to being able to predict these illnesses and to identify all these high risk patients. When I started to to develop on that machine, health was was born. And that’s what we do. We use patient medical data fully secure, obviously, and we are hip and high tech compliant to be able to identify all these high risk patients before the illness actually occurs via outpatient care for cardiologists and primary care physicians.

Lee Kantor: [00:04:45] So there are some breadcrumbs that every individual is leaving that the the machine learning can help kind of identify. And this artificial intelligence can kind of bubble up and say, you know what, because of these six random, seemingly random data points, this person is on the path to being a high risk patient.

Moh Noori: [00:05:04] Exactly. And we use deep learning technologies for that.

Lee Kantor: [00:05:09] So it may not be obvious, like to the physician or to the naked eye, but because of the way that the data is being analyzed, certain patterns kind of bubble up and you’re able to to at least kind of put a marker on something to go, hey, this person, watch out, you know?

Moh Noori: [00:05:27] Exactly. Not only do we identify all these high risk patients through different variable points and data points within their own medical records, but we also have the actionable, which is building a drug and dosage recommendation for the physician to make the ultimate decision on diagnosis.

Lee Kantor: [00:05:47] So not only it kind of bubbles them up and says, okay, pay attention. This person already gives them a path to treat them.

Moh Noori: [00:05:55] Exactly. And we also focus on readmissions. So we’re looking into bettering the patient outcomes and provide more value based care for the for the patient.

Lee Kantor: [00:06:06] And explain why that’s so important in today’s world. Not everybody is aware of, you know, at one point they didn’t care, insurance companies didn’t care if the person was readmitted, but now they care a lot. So can you talk a little bit about that development and how that might have impacted kind of the your solution and how important it is?

Moh Noori: [00:06:27] Correct. Definitely. Well, so, you know, medicine has has been and the health care institutions have been compensated through being like more based off of reactive based medicine versus preventive and payers used to compensate health care institutions based off of how many times a patient were to be admitted into a hospital, for example, or clinic or small practice. We found out that now, since their business model has changed into better, more quality based care, now health care institutions get penalized for patients being readmitted. With that being said, I mean, I looked into the readmission costs and it equated to over $72 million a day in losses and penalties just in the United States health care system. So now providers are losing money and they’re now they’re looking into other solutions on being able to lower that that cost. And that’s what we help out with.

Lee Kantor: [00:07:35] So now once you have the idea and you have that personal experience, that was kind of the that got the fire underneath you to really pursue this and it was really personally important to you. How did you go about building your team?

Moh Noori: [00:07:50] For sure. I mean, while I was in school, I was just a one man show. As we started to kind of gain traction on building out a web application, hosting it online. I was able to kind of gain more, more traction because even though our marketing budget was pretty much at zero, we’re starting to spread. We use social media, we use Angel’s List. I attended a lot of hackathons conferences to kind of spread the word, and we started to kind of build a team from from there. Now we’re a team of still very lean, but we’re a team of 12 that’s consisted of AI engineers, software developers, designer and a busy analyst. And we are under the advisory of world renowned cardiologists that work at the Brigham and Mass General Hospital.

Lee Kantor: [00:08:39] Now, how difficult was it to kind of get the ear of these physicians and people that are in the trenches doing this kind of work? You know, because you’re not a doctor, right? You’re that’s how your background.

Moh Noori: [00:08:53] Exactly. My background is more in tech and sales. But I have worked for biotech companies in the past, and it was extremely difficult in the beginning just because I found out that a lot of physicians and health care institutions are not really open to innovative solutions also.

Lee Kantor: [00:09:12] Is that surprising to you? Like as a as an entrepreneur and somebody who is, you know, probably perpetually trying to solve problems? Did that surprise you that people who are in science are hesitant to try new things and to really kind of go out on a limb and maybe test something that isn’t fully vetted and proven?

Moh Noori: [00:09:33] Very I was very shocked, you know, especially with me speaking to some physicians who have never even heard of artificial intelligence there. Some physicians have been practicing medicine for 30 plus years, and they’re really focused on what they’ve been doing in the past. They think it works and we have no doubt about it. They know medicine more than anybody else, and we 100% agree. But I think the obstacles that we encounter every single day, like physician burnout, such as how much time are you really spending on a per patient appointment basis? Right. And being able to kind of like utilize technology to help them out, you know, to really assist them with every single admission, whether it be outpatient for whatever illness it is. We are starting out with cardiovascular disease as of right now, but we’re looking to grow into other domains, hopefully in the future. But as long as we can get some health care providers and institutions to kind of really work with startups to to get everything up and running, go to market, maybe team up or partner with startups. I believe that we can really plug in a lot of the gaps out there in the health care industry.

Lee Kantor: [00:10:53] So now you have this idea, you build a team, you get some people in medicine that are getting behind it, and so it’s always bootstrapped at the beginning. Or were you like immediately looking to raise funds?

Moh Noori: [00:11:08] No, we were 100% bootstrap and we currently are as well. It’s it hasn’t been an easy road or like pathway, but we are staying focused and and we’re looking to actually raise rounds right now for our seed round.

Lee Kantor: [00:11:25] So you’ve just now started kind of really because that’s a business by itself now fundraising.

Moh Noori: [00:11:32] Fundraising is it’s a it’s a very sweet and sour type of relationship. I am trying to enjoy the the path to it, but it’s not the most easiest thing to overcome.

Lee Kantor: [00:11:46] Right. But it’s like a separate business. Like you have your business of scripting chain health, which has its own fun and games, but then you have now fund raising, which is a different business that has its own fun and games.

Moh Noori: [00:11:58] Very, very true. They’re they’re they’re both full time jobs.

Lee Kantor: [00:12:02] So is this entrepreneurial path? Is it how you imagined? Is it is it kind of how you pictured it in your head when you started?

Moh Noori: [00:12:14] Yes and no. I think growing up, my my father and my uncles are both entrepreneurs as well. And I used to see them hitting the ground, running for their for their own businesses. But I didn’t know it was so much of a war. And I think at an early stage, it really is a war, especially in a highly regulated industry to be in. There are a lot of obstacles to overcome. There are a lot of regulations out there, and getting people up to speed with things isn’t the most easiest thing to do either.

Lee Kantor: [00:12:51] Well, you use the word war, and that’s interesting terminology. Did you think that the people you’d be battling were the people you’re currently battling? Because I would think that a lot of people, before they get into being an entrepreneur, they think maybe it’s competitors and that there’s these other people that are the ones that are holding you back. But in actuality, there’s saboteurs around a lot of different corners.

Moh Noori: [00:13:14] Oh, of course. I mean, and I use the word war because you don’t really know who your friend or foe actually is until you start to compete against other competitors and start to try to gain as much market share as possible. And then you start to see where people try to gather some insights about your own company and then try to use it against you.

Lee Kantor: [00:13:38] And and also the incumbents that want to just keep things the same. They don’t want change. They’re saboteurs as well.

Moh Noori: [00:13:48] Very true.

Lee Kantor: [00:13:49] So now any advice for founders out there that are kind of getting into this health care tech space? What are some of the things that you would you know, maybe that you can smooth out their learning curve? What are some of the areas maybe they should pay attention to?

Moh Noori: [00:14:06] Yeah, definitely. Say, I mean, you have to have a lot of grit to be in this business. It’s not the most difficult. I mean, it is one of the most difficult industries to kind of get in. And I think having the expertize around you is very, very important to try to get as much exposure and expertize at a very early stage just because it will help you in the long run. So you don’t kind of hit the hit the brick wall over and over again.

Lee Kantor: [00:14:37] So finding that medical person with experience that’s maybe seasoned early, if you can get buy in from a person like that, that could help you accelerate your growth.

Moh Noori: [00:14:50] Correct. Both from from a medical perspective as well as technology perspective as well.

Lee Kantor: [00:14:56] So now how did you hear about Startup Showdown and Panoramic Ventures? How did that get on your radar?

Moh Noori: [00:15:02] Yeah, so I actually I competed in one of their pitch competitions and I made it to the top five. So I got exposure through that. And it was it was a really, really good experience.

Lee Kantor: [00:15:15] So what was there any take away from there that was most beneficial that you could share?

Moh Noori: [00:15:22] I would definitely say that your story is a very important aspect to your to your business, as well as being helpful for pitch competitions and also know your numbers.

Lee Kantor: [00:15:35] So kind of articulating your why and what the opportunity is, that’s you’ve got to get really good at talking about that.

Moh Noori: [00:15:44] Exactly. And then also know your ask as well.

Lee Kantor: [00:15:48] Yeah, some people forget that part. And that’s kind of the where the rubber hits the road.

Moh Noori: [00:15:53] Exactly. Exactly.

Lee Kantor: [00:15:55] So now what do you need more of today? How can we help you?

Moh Noori: [00:16:00] I mean, spreading the word about supporting health. We are looking like I said before, we are currently fundraising right now so we can get any investors who would like to come on board as a as a long term partner for us. We would really appreciate that as well as other medical expertize domains. So if you are a physician scientist, if you are head of innovation that you’re at your hospital, please feel free to reach out.

Lee Kantor: [00:16:27] Now, what about ideal client? Who is the kind of purchaser of these scrip chain health software?

Moh Noori: [00:16:35] Yeah. So hospitals, clinics and small practices would be our customers right now.

Lee Kantor: [00:16:42] So like there’s a cardiologist out there with a practice. They it would be good for them to know about you guys.

Moh Noori: [00:16:47] Definitely.

Lee Kantor: [00:16:48] And if somebody wants to learn more, what’s a website.

Moh Noori: [00:16:52] You can go to? Ww Script, Chain, Dot CO. We are also on social media as well. So we have a LinkedIn page, we have an Instagram, so feel free to message us through that and we’ll definitely reach out to you.

Lee Kantor: [00:17:07] Good stuff. Well, thank you so much for sharing your story. You’re doing important work and we appreciate you.

Moh Noori: [00:17:12] Thank you so much, Lee. And thank you all for for listening to me. Hopefully, we’ll be able to continue our conversation later.

Lee Kantor: [00:17:20] All right. This is Lee Kantor. We’ll see you next time on Startup Showdown.

Intro: [00:17:25] As always, thanks for joining us. And don’t forget to follow and subscribe to the Startup Showdown podcast. So you get the latest episode as it drops wherever you listen to podcasts to learn more and apply to our next startup Showdown Pitch Competition Visit Showdown Dot VC. That’s Showdown Dot VC. All right, that’s all for this week. Goodbye for now.