316 How Patientory Is Changing Healthcare From the Ground Up

Speaker A: This is the art of Startup War and I am, um, your sensei, Brian McMahon. Now in season one and two, I got inside the minds of startup investors. In season three, I brought in entrepreneurs to share their startup journey. Here in season four, we combined both so you can hear investors critique the investment value proposition of individual companies. You're going to hear how investors make decisions to invest in in startups, what makes a great entrepreneur, and how billion dollar companies are built. So tune in every Tuesday, 10am on all the major platforms. You can empower your tribe by sharing the podcast. And remember to subscribe, rate, review and leave us a comment.

Speaker B: Good morning, good afternoon, good evening. It is Brian here from Expert Dojo. Again you are in the pod and we are talking to another phenomenal entrepreneur who we have invested in only one objective of this podcast and that is for other investors to get the down low on, um, the diligence that Expert Dojo did on this phenomenal company that we already made an investment into. Uh, that's all we do, right? Bring them in, make sure the founders are here, make sure that we actually talk about what everything that you need to know as an investor in the business and we go from there. So Chris, welcome to the show.

Speaker C: Thank you, Brian for having me.

Speaker B: Ah, of course. I invested in you. I love you, I love the company. I know you're going to do fantastic and I'm absolutely delighted to share it with everybody else. So can we go back in time, like back to the beginning and tell us the genesis of the idea behind patientry? Like, what was it that made you realize I have to do this?

Speaker C: Well, it was really a culmination of all my experiences and I came to an aha moment and I was like, oh my God, this is it. So I actually started out in microbiome research and I was like, you know, in a dark room and I was like, I don't think this is for me. Like I would literally count bacteria in a petri dish all day. Um, wow. As part of, yeah, as part of my research, um, decided to go, um, into hospital administration. So, you know, started up a couple programs that worked in the community in upstate New York, um, with mental health and associations and nonprofits that serviced about 10,000 people. From there I went to business school and got, and found myself in consulting, solving problems for people. And I realized that's what I loved. Um, my whole set was on actually be a practice and clinician, um, and fell in love with just the whole, um, health it world. So I started out in implementing electronic Medical records and did sales for that. That was really throughout the Obama administration when the whole push for digitization of medical data was um, at the forefront, um, at just federal policy and initiatives. And then I got asked to join and early stage startup who had just raised their Series A. They were one of the first telemedicine companies. And I built out an insurance product within that company and managed that, um, we sold into employer organizations, right, this telemedicine product, which was way ahead of its time, um, during around 2013, 2014. And our biggest challenge was always ah, accessing patient data. So you know, fast forward, that company sold in 2017, um, decided to go out and start my own company. That's pretty much what I was doing throughout my career and leading and managing projects in the healthcare space. And decided to tackle the biggest challenge I had in my prior experience, which was patient access to data. Um, and it was following Bitcoin pretty early in that. And I, uh, researched the underlying technology and I was like, wow, this is what we need for healthcare. We've seen. I studied and saw so many companies come and go and try to solve for patient access to data. We have big names like the Microsoft Health Vaults, the Box, um, and no one seemed to be able to come up with solid infrastructure for that. Um, and that's where the premise of blockchain really promises us this idea around democratization. Right. Given power back to the individual, which fully aligned with what we need for health care today.

Speaker B: I couldn't agree more. The challenge is the implementation. Oh right. Because like every new technology that comes through blockchain expert dojo to be official and unofficial and all kinds of anything. You want me to say it, we are monster believers in blockchain. Right? And we believe that when we look at the new infrastructure of the web in the same way that TV went from like black and white to color and in the same way went from bicycles to cars and all these wonderful things happen. We believe that uh, the infrastructure of the web will evolve and it will just become stronger and better and more transparent and blue blockchain is just a wonderful facilitator of that. Some things are harder though to bring absolute transparency in. And I know things like health records and data and those things have been talked about for a long time and uh, a lot of the challenges I think that folks have had originally was around the decentralization of much of the system anyway and much of the records and pulling them into one place. So could you speak to maybe some of the challenges that you had with Actually the system at the beginning and then how you overcame those challenges in a wonderful and amazing way.

Speaker C: Yeah. So when I started this, we made a white paper and the first thing was like, okay, wow, okay, so we have this idea on a paper, how are we going to get this medical data? So we spent about two years just trying to figure out. We went to hospital systems, realized we were not going to be successful by knocking on these hospitals door and saying we need to go one by one and connect and implement, um, as a solution. Fortunately, interoperability has always been an initiative in the space since electronic medical records. Um, I joined hims, which is one of the main nonprofits around health it, the largest pretty much in our country. Um, ended up on that, on their interoperability committee and board. And that's where I found out about new regulations that were shaping up and taken place, which we as a committee was able to, um, provide inputs and insights and into what is now the 21st Century Cures act and the data blocking rule and what has come out of that with, um, what we call tefca out of, you know, HHS and the federal initiative to be able to seamlessly share information, but also importantly have individuals be able to access, um, their data. So through that networking, I was able to, um, really get in front of key players within the HIE space. So health information exchanges, um, and the big national ones today, that's part of that push for hospitals to adopt not only the legislation, but frameworks so that companies like ours can easily and seamlessly integrated to the emrs. Um, so that, that took about a couple of years, but because it was hard, right? Yeah, it was hard.

Speaker B: And then talk to me about. So and you got through that and passed that and you built through. So then talk to me. But as you started to build the company and develop the company and turn it into something bigger, and you started to raise money and bring in capital from the outside. As you were working through the challenges that there were in the beginning with bringing any great new technology to market, how were you also working on building the team and building up the investment coffers as well?

Speaker C: Yeah, well, that was also another challenge. It was just a challenge after a challenge. But fortunately, you know, we had great, I would say marketed, especially just being in the Web three space and one of the earlier health care companies in the space, um, we had a lot of people wanting to come and join our mission. Like they were really excited about, about this and everyone understood it because it made sense, especially people that, you know, today just suffer from chronic diseases and have to manage their, their medical data and information. Um, so we had a lot of people just come and want to join, most of which probably weren't a good fit. So that was hard to understand in the beginning. Um, yeah. So, you know, building up the team, you know, we really try to focus on, on those skill sets that me personally, I didn't have more on like the technical side and you know, um, and the, the to go deeper into that, that security that we needed. Um, and then on the investor side, you know, we all, some of our really early investors, um, and I talk about the angels. These were like angels at like cdc. So they were like really excited in just seeing how their day to day work was impacted because of lack of information and quality data.

Speaker B: You know, the great news here, everybody wants to solve this problem. Yeah, it's a huge problem. Um, and because it's so decentralized and uh, because it's so disjointed. This decentralized is actually too kind a way to say it because it's so disjointed and so hard to be able to get data. And data is also a bit of a cold word. Like the warm word is the history on, um, the challenges that Brian McMahon might have with his health in the future so that Brian McMahon is able to live a happy and long life. Right. That's what you want to know and you want to be able to pull all of this together. So like, what you're creating is so beautiful and so nice that everybody wants it to be able to be done. What have you learned over the years that has led you to a place where you feel more confident about it and more optimistic about it? Like, talk us through the journey. Like, the wonderful thing about the hero's journey is you start at the beginning, you come up with the idea, and then it's like, uh, Zorro, where you're like at the beginning of the movie, the baddie comes in with the mustache and then the sword fight ensues and then Zorro is on the ground and fights up. And that's at the beginning when you're trying to take all this disjointed information and bring it through. And now as we come around the hero's journey to the other side, you're winning. So talk us through. Now this next part, as you're starting to break through both on a funding side and also on attraction side to getting to the place that you want to get to.

Speaker C: Absolutely. We're definitely at that inflection Point, I mean we've gone through that valley and I think it's, it's, you know, we, you really have to appreciate that because, you know, at your lowest you can understand what, you know, what your weaknesses are, what your strengths are. Um, and we never stop taking interviews with customers, even investors, like they're our customer. And like you said, Brian, you know, everyone wants to solve this. Right. Everyone is a patient. Right. Everyone wants to live a healthier, happier lifestyle. Right. Um, so, so that's, you know, something a, ah, trend that we always see when we have these discussions and now that we're going to market, you know, and people are excited about this, you know, people from customers using the app, um, it's really starting to, to listen to their stories. Right. And, and really understand, you know, how this is impacting them. That we can also share this with other investors that come on so that, you know, everyone has that skin in the game and can truly understand the magnitude. Right. And the impact that we're building.

Speaker B: That's so beautiful. And then for the investors who are listening, who now go through the stage where they're saying, okay, so I want to understand how the traction is moving forward. So talk about maybe some of the proof points that have happened over the last while and that you are expected to continue going forward. And then we're going to dig into the team a little bit more.

Speaker C: Yeah. So, you know, we started out thinking that, you know, we were going to build this for the healthcare system. Um, Fast forward and 2020 Covid comes around and I got an email from um, a pharmaceutical partner saying, hey, are you willing to help us recruit? We have a client that is in their clinical trial phase for the COVID 19 vaccine and they're missing a certain number of people in the trial and we're like, you know, we really didn't think about this until more of a long term strategy to go into pharma because we just know like, you know, it's, it's not the right time for pharma. Um, so I ended up taking that, that meeting and in six weeks we were using the platform to help recruit for Moderna's clinical trials. And they did a whole press release around that and that was really a game changer for us because we started to see, you know, that that product market fit and the adoption of where this truly was. And I don't think anyone from a, you know, patient, um, portal or just a, you know, a patient repository perspective has actually used this or actually come out with a viable business model. And that's where we started to look at this more as a, you know, R and D and clinical trial platform. And we just started to go to more of these partners, um, and sponsors in the pharmaceutical space and say, hey, you can use our platform to identify candidates for these trials that you're doing and we can save you time. Um, fast forward. We've done complete over 40 trials. We've matched over 2,000 people. Right. Um, to recruit and we want to continue to grow on that.

Speaker B: Wow. And, and that, and, and how do you see that growing over 20, 23?

Speaker C: Well, as you said it Brian, we know in our Monday meetings our, our goal is, is 250% growth. Right. So taken, you know, we, we currently recruit for about 15, um, pharmaceutical partners today. And our goal is to not only increase our capacity for trials but also to, you know, really penetrate the market and bring on new partners and opportunities.

Speaker B: I love it. I love that you're focused on that 250% growth year on year. That's a beautiful thing because by the way, investors, if you haven't been studying this, that's all you want. You want to find a company, if it could be somebody like Krista that's changing the world. That is what is called a RUSI bonus. You just got lucky. Right. But you want underneath that to be able to see that 200% growth year plus year on year. So you can see that the company can then have a straight trajectory to getting to a couple of million dollars a month. And I love that Chris is on right on target for that. And then so talk to us about the team, talk to us about the people that you're surrounding yourself with to make sure that you can take this to the series A round.

Speaker C: Absolutely. So I talked about myself previously just coming out of that emerging tech health information IT space, really passionate around bringing new solutions to impact healthcare delivery. Uh, my cto, he's been on as well since the beginning, has more of that over 20 years experience in big data analytics. So really early within that analytics and machine learning space to really um, monitor our tech and usher in the technology from where it is and make it really applicable to the healthcare industry. Right. Um, since we built our own proprietary, uh, blockchain network, um, with over 20 patents, we already have about half of those granted. Um, mhm. And then we early on, because this is new tech, new market, a lot of our operations and marketing, we have a partner with Georgia Tech here because we are based in Atlanta and Georgia State University, Health informatics. So just really working with smart people, technical people that get health care informatics and information, um, even to our advisors who are former CEOs of health insurance Systems, hospital systems. So it's been a great ride and we have around 20ambassadors. I don't know if you knew this, Brian. Um, globally that works on strategic initiatives within their departments of health. So one of them two in Dubai that manages Dubai Health Authority. So we're really looking at this not only from a strategic but from a global perspective and really understanding healthcare, um, not only in the US but in other parts of the world and how this technology can have that impact.

Speaker B: I love that. And then, so when you add on new members of the team, what positions are you filling for?

Speaker C: So with our next round of funding, we're looking to really build out um, our, of course the C suite, but our senior management. So you know, we are hiring for VP of Biz Dev. We have over 60 organizations in our pipeline, so it's a lot for the founder to handle at this point. Um, and just going to market and scale in and really taking on a marketing director that can manage our campaigns.

Speaker B: Embrace that 18 hour day. Embrace it.

Speaker C: Oh my.

Speaker B: That's what it is. That's the startup dream. You know that. And uh, by the way, that's one of the things I also really like about you is the fact that when you're starting out a company, you have a choice, right? You can either overspend or bring in a ton of folks and run out of money, or you can under deliver and try and do what you can do. Or uh, you can do what you do, which is cover a multitude of tasks way more than would normally be possible for a mere mortal. And then make sure that you're continually pushing forward while at the same time making sure that you're keeping a total homage to the scientific side so that you can provide the service you need to for your existing customers. Very powerful. And the nice thing about like how you're dealing with your existing customers is it's helping you build a better and better product fit. Because the more information they tell you, the more you know what your product should look like in the future.

Speaker C: Exactly. Yeah, that's, that's golden, right? You always want, you know, at least we both myself and our cto, we always strive to be close, you know, to, to that customer base.

Speaker B: Yeah. And tell me about the investment side. What are the plans for investment?

Speaker C: So we were oversubscribed in our pre seed. We raised over 1.5. We are currently just started with our seed. Um, and really talking to investors and VCs around that we have around 50 UM percent committed there. So we're looking to, we're raising 5 million on a convertible um, note which will give us approximately 18 to 24 months um, to really start to bring on you know, those key accounts in our pipeline, you know that we can go to scale. So our goal is that Series A Brian that I love it.

Speaker B: I'm here with you and M. When are you raising that? I love that you're ready.

Speaker C: Yes, yes.

Speaker B: And that's, and that's going to be. So you're going to do that raise straight away right?

Speaker C: Yes we are.

Speaker B: Okay, wonderful. And then when you get that money through, how are you going to break down how you're going to spend the money and how do you expect that to impact the traction then as soon as you have it in and you got the people in place and you're ready to go?

Speaker C: Yeah. So as we know, you know our goal 40% of that is definitely going to go to new hires. Um as we mentioned, you know another 30 is, is it's for our go to market. So that, that marketing piece especially being a new technology in the market, so really honing in and building our brand, uh, and that consumer loyalty which I think we have some already, you know we have over 20 combined. You know collectively we have over 25,000 followers on our social media. Yeah. And um, the remainder operational costs and you know just really tweaking the product as ah, we start to learn more about those users. What works, you know, what doesn't work um, with a product like Patient Query.

Speaker B: Great. And then how do you expect that to affect traction both towards the end of this year and beginning of next year? Like what changes?

Speaker C: I would say our goal especially we have partnerships right now so we have around 50k subscribers. Our goal is to um, we have a partner that has over 23 million consumers. So you know our goal is really start to onboard those users um, you know again ah, get at least 100,000 um, conservative. Right. It'd be great if we got Even you know, 2% of those, that 23 million users and then the revenue traction. So you know we've been recruiting heavily for these clinical trials. Um, we're now at a stage where we're now you know ready to look at other forms of revenue streams within that. Right. To, to continue to, to meet um, you know those CROs and pharma where they are, um, and supporting those, those trials.

Speaker B: I love that. And then you will obviously bring the Right. Members of the team in to make sure that the team joins. You've got the traction, which is covered. You've got the marketing, which is covered. And you've really got all the angles. So now I want to get to final two questions. Right? Second last one, very easy. You're just going to give email contact details so folks can connect with you. But then the last one that I want to get to is the important one. And this is one where it's five years in the future. You're being interviewed by your very favorite TV channel interviewer. Right? This is the news, the business news. You've just exited out of the company. You have done incredible things. You've actually maximized everything that you wanted to achieve in patientry. So I'm going to ask you to summarize what happened in that interview. But before we do that, let's look at your. Just get your email.

Speaker C: So my email is very simple. It's ChrisA patienttory.com that's C H R I S S A perfect.

Speaker B: And uh, just spell it Patientry please just for everybody.

Speaker C: And that patienttory is P A T I E N T O R y dot com. You can also find me on Twitter and so I actively write on emergent tech for Forbes. Um, you can reach out to me there as well as LinkedIn. Hrissa McFarlane.

Speaker B: Chrissa, tell me last question of the day, but this is an important one, right? You're being interviewed by let's say Bloomberg, right. They are talking to you about the incredible success you had in exiting patientry. Now whether you exited through an IPO or an acquisition, you're going to have to share also. You're going to also share the incredible things that you achieved through patientry. You have to actually talk about every single thing that you wanted to achieve that you did achieve through the company through the exit and just talk us uh, through the end of the interview.

Speaker C: Yes. So patientory, five years in the future. So we've been uh, acquired by a, a large tech company that has been trying to figure out health care and the greatest thing in our long term vision which is being able to really break down the silos in health care and make it part of our everyday lives which we are able to do because people are using this application and going to this application to understand more about their health as well as being able to make money from it. So you know, uh, we've done what we've set out to do in really usher in this new Internet and applying it to health care which we know has always been at the lag in the industry and just adopting new innovations. Um, so you know we were acquired we currently with this new acquisition. This will help us grow the the the the app to meet, you know, a population of 2 billion people around the world who are using the application to really help them manage their their health.

Speaker B: I love it. That is a beautiful thing. I'm so proud to have been a part of that incredible exit. Congratulations.

Speaker C: Thank you Chris.

Speaker B: It's been a pleasure. We're going to keep on rocking forward investors. You know how to contact Chris, otherwise you can hit me up brianbertdojo.com I'm very happy to speak about anything past current, our future, about patientry and otherwise. I just wish you all the very best on the journey. Chris, um, we'll be with you all the way.

Speaker A: Thanks for joining us. If you love the podcast, please empower your circle by sharing these stories. Stories. The Art of Startup War is brought to you by Expert Dojo. And remember, we invest in startups $50,000 checks. Make sure you apply on our site if you are one of those great entrepreneurs looking to bring your company to the next level. As far as the Art of Startup War is concerned, we are back every single Tuesday at 10:00am so remember, check out the new episodes if you want to find out what the investors think. Check, check out season one or two, but make sure you join us every single week.