Omer (00:11.840)
Welcome to another episode of the SaaS Podcast.
I'm your host, Omer Khan, and this is the show where I interview proven founders and industry experts who share their stories, strategies, and insights to help you build, launch, and grow your SaaS business.
This Week's interview is with a serial entrepreneur who had the idea for his next startup while he was waiting in a doctor's office.
But when he started doing customer development interviews, he quickly realized that no one was interested in or willing to pay for his idea.
Now, some people would have given up there and gone back to the drawing board.
However, my guest kept doing those customer development interviews, but started asking people a different question and the answer to that question gave him another idea.
He validated that idea in a few weeks and we discuss how exactly he did that.
And he's gone from an idea to a business in two years, which has 142 employees and has raised over $24 million in funding.
So I hope you enjoy this interview.
All right, today's guest is the founder and co CEO of Patient Pop, an all in one marketing automation platform for healthcare providers.
The company was founded in 2014 and has raised just under $24 million to date.
Prior to launching Patient Pop, my guest co founded two companies that both had successful exits and were acquired.
So today I'd like to welcome Luke Kervin to the show.
Luke, welcome.
Luke Kervin (01:55.400)
Thank you.
Very happy to be here.
Omer (01:57.880)
Now, I always ask, I always start by asking my guests what drives and motivates them.
Is there.
Is there a quote that maybe is something that sort of drives you or kind of reflects the way that you guys think about building your business?
Luke Kervin (02:15.730)
Yes, absolutely.
You know, a quote that we frequently reference at Patient Pop, it's a.
It's a patent quote.
And you.
You may have heard it before.
It's a good plan violently executed now is better than a perfect plan executed next week.
And that really describes the way that we operate here at Patient Pop.
Omer (02:33.650)
Cool.
I like that quote.
So I told the.
The listeners a little bit about Patient Pop, but in your own words, can you explain a little bit more about the product and how is it different or better than maybe what else is available out there in the market today?
Luke Kervin (02:55.180)
Absolutely.
So we call ourselves the first practice growth platform for healthcare providers.
And our mission is to help practices grow.
We do that by helping them acquire new patients and by bringing existing patients back.
Secondly, we're helping to modernize their patient experience with technology.
And third, we're helping to streamline their front office.
And so if you look at the Healthcare industry today, most practices have a technology stack that consists of an electronic medical record and a practice growth platform.
But that technology stack really doesn't kick in until the patient's in the examining room.
That's when the doctor comes in and they start working with the electronic medical record system.
So our role, our practice growth platform is responsible for managing the patient journey from first impression all the way until the patient is in the examining room and then we pick up again after treatment is complete to manage and nurture that relationship and to recall the patient when the time is right.
And we're integrating our platform with the EMRs and the practice management systems to provide an integrated solution for managing the patient journey end to end.
Omer (04:06.490)
Cool.
That was a very comprehensive explanation.
Thank you.
How did you come up with the idea for this product?
Luke Kervin (04:14.330)
So, you know, as you mentioned, this is the third technology business that I've worked on.
The first two were in a completely different space.
They were in the affiliate commerce space.
And so our role in that in those businesses were to drive transactions for e commerce retailers.
And so we built technology platforms, automated technology to drive transactions through SEO, PPC advertising, email marketing, social media.
And so when we sold our last business, my business partner and I spent a lot of time thinking about what we would do next.
Just so happened that my wife happened to be pregnant with our daughter Ella.
At the time, I was starting to spend a lot of time in doctor's offices.
For the first time I was really paying attention.
I started to notice some issues as new parents we were seeing or expecting parents.
We were seeing a lot of different healthcare providers, a lot of different tests were being run.
We were interpreting those test results.
It felt uncoordinated to me.
In my wife's case, they missed a critical test result.
Now it got caught by accident, but had it not been caught, it could have proved to be critical and her pregnancy.
And so I thought there has to be a better way.
And so my business partner and I went out to interview doctors, we interviewed OB GYNs in Santa Monica, which is where we're headquartered.
And we talked to them about this problem and this idea that we had.
Now we learned almost immediately that it wasn't a good idea.
They weren't willing to pay for this type of platform.
They didn't see the problem.
But while we were there, I started to ask questions about what was keeping them up at night, what problems they were having.
I started to consistently hear the same thing over and over again.
I heard that they were having trouble surviving as independent practices with the changes in health care and the changes in reimbursement models.
I heard that they were recognizing that the front door of their practice was moving online.
They all recognized in 2014 that to be successful in the future, they had to be successful online, because that's where patients were going today, to research healthcare providers.
And so it was interesting when I learned more about what they were doing to solve this problem.
They had sort of built a hodgepodge solution.
In a lot of cases, they hired a mom and pop web development shop.
They were giving Yelp 500 bucks a month because they thought it would help with reputation.
They were paying a vendor for online scheduling, a vendor for appointment reminders, someone to do PPC advertising, someone to do social media.
And it was really a big mess for them.
It was overwhelming for them to manage all of the these different vendors.
They thought it was too expensive.
And the worst part was, at the end of the day, they really didn't know what they were getting.
And that was the part that was really interesting to me, because when I asked them what they were getting, they said, we don't know.
All we're being told is how many website visitors we're getting.
And Yelp will tell us how many profile views we get.
But healthcare providers don't care about those metrics.
What they really wanted to know was how many patients are they getting?
Are they new or returning patients?
How often are they coming back, what services are being performed?
They want to know the lifetime value of that acquired patient, and they really want to know their return on investment.
And that's when the light went off for me the last.
I spent my whole career helping to build technology to track transactions.
That's what we did in affiliate commerce.
We built technology to follow the purchase, to see what was purchased, to see how often they came back, what additional products they purchased.
And so I thought, this is what we need to build to be successful in healthcare marketing.
We need to build a similar platform.
And so we sat down and made a long list of all the things we would do to be successful marketing online for healthcare.
And that's essentially what Patient Pop is today.
It's a software as a service platform to help healthcare providers grow their practice.
Omer (07:52.680)
So that's really interesting that you started off with a different idea and a different problem, and the conversations that you had with physicians kind of told you it wasn't a great idea and that it wasn't something that they were willing to pay for.
And in many cases, that would have probably been the end of it for a Lot of people, right.
I mean, they would said, okay, I had this idea, I went out there and validated it, and kind of there's nothing there.
Maybe I need to move on to the next thing.
So I'm curious, like, how did these other conversations happen when you started sort of exploring the pains?
Did that sort of just happen by accident or did you sort of very quickly realize, okay, this idea is going nowhere, but this is a market that we do want to sort of get into and maybe there's another opportunity that we should pursue instead?
Luke Kervin (08:55.980)
Yeah.
So when we went out with that initial idea, I was hearing a lot of no's very quickly.
Right.
They were very straightforward and saying, no, we're not interested in that.
But I also spent my entire career in online marketing.
And so I was asking questions about what they were doing to succeed online.
And like I said, I was hearing a similar theme and the problems they were having, what was keeping them up at night.
And so while we, we failed to validate that initial idea, we did learn very quickly that there was a, what we believe is a bigger opportunity.
And so then we went on to validate that idea and we actually took it a step further.
So we went beyond the interview.
I wanted to be absolutely certain that there was a business here before I started investing my time and raising money.
And so step one for us was to validate that there was existing demand.
I like the idea of building a business where demand exists today.
I don't want to create demand for a product.
And so what we did was we created business cards.
We called ourselves Patient Tap.
At the time, we created business cards, we created a brochure, we created a one page landing page of a website, and we went out and scheduled meetings with healthcare providers in the Santa Monica area.
And we went in and pitched Patient Tap as an existing business.
And really what we were looking to confirm is that doctors were interested in this type of product and they were willing to get their pen out and sign a contract and they were willing to pay money for that product.
And so we were thrilled when the first nine doctors that we pitched signed up for Patient Pop.
We knew we were on.
We knew that we were onto something.
Omer (10:36.300)
All nine signed up?
Luke Kervin (10:38.060)
Yes.
Omer (10:39.340)
What kind of commitment were you asking them to make?
Luke Kervin (10:42.140)
We were asking them to commit to 400 to 400 to $500 a month per provider for the Patient Pop platform.
Omer (10:52.370)
And you didn't have a product?
Luke Kervin (10:54.690)
We at the time did not have a product.
Omer (10:56.770)
Okay, good.
So here's one other question that I'm kind of curious about is a marketing automation platform makes a lot of sense for a number of industries, whether, you know, especially whether you're doing online marketing.
I mean, totally, but I kind of struggle to see doctors using a marketing automation system.
It seems like they'd be happier off with the service, somebody coming in and just saying, we'll take care of it for you.
So how does.
How does patient pop sort of bridge that gap?
Luke Kervin (11:40.870)
Yeah.
So I'll clarify one thing.
We're not a traditional marketing automation platform.
We're not a HubSpot or marketo.
We are a marketing platform that is automated.
So from the perspective of the provider, we are providing a service to them.
They sign up for patient pop and we'll provide them a website.
We'll provide them with online scheduling.
We'll provide them with automated appointment reminders.
We'll manage their web presence.
We'll track the appointments that are coming in.
We'll provide them with detailed analytics so they know exactly what's going on with their online presence, how many patients they're attracting, if they're new or returning, what services are being performed.
And so we call it marketing automation in a general sense because it is an automated marketing platform, but it's very different than a marketo or a HubSpot.
Omer (12:26.980)
Okay, okay, that totally makes sense.
Got it.
Okay.
All right, so you've got nine doctors signed up.
Um, I guess you need a product now.
So what did you guys do next?
Luke Kervin (12:41.070)
Yeah, so that was step one for us, right?
Validate existing demand.
We had this idea.
We put it down on paper.
We did that in a very short time period.
We did that in less than two weeks.
And so we're like, great, we're onto something here.
And so the next step for us was to validate initial product market fit.
Right.
So we knew there was demand for something like patient pop, but we wanted to prove that we could build a product that would satisfy that demand.
And so we cobbled together a solution.
We built something really quickly.
We did a lot of stuff manually.
We built the user interface, but on the back end, there was a lot of manual work happening.
We were trying to prove that the tactics that had worked in e commerce marketing would work for healthcare providers.
We went back to those doctors that we had sold and we explained that we were getting started, that we were building out the solution and that we were actually going to offer it to them for free and invited them into our beta program.
And then we went out to prove that this thing would work.
And so we were delighted in the first 30 days.
We drove an average of 21 new patients to the practices that were participating in our beta program.
And as soon as that happened, we knew we were onto something and we decided to go raise capital.
Omer (13:51.060)
Okay, what did you do to drive the 21, um, on average patients?
Because it sounds like in the, in the initial stage when you don't have a product, there's going to be a lot of manual backend work.
Building out websites, building out the online presence, figuring out how you're going to drive traffic there.
So what, what were some of the things that you did, some of the low hanging fruit or, or successful tactics that, that helped you deliver those results so quickly?
Sure.
Luke Kervin (14:28.780)
So I'll give you a couple of examples.
Just very quickly.
If a local business wants to be successful online, they have to manage their web presence.
So they have to build out profiles across local directories.
They need to have a website that's optimized for search engines, they need to manage their reputation, they should be doing some social media and they should do PPC advertising.
Those are the five pillars for local marketing.
And so as an example, with web profiles, you know, there's probably 50 to 75 sites that a healthcare provider should have a profile on, everything from local directories like Yelp to healthcare directories like health grades.
And so initially we would go out and we would build these profiles by hand.
We would do it manually, but today we have API access, so we're able to populate those profiles from our platform so that work doesn't have to be done manually.
Similarly, with the website, we have a website solution today that's very elegant.
Someone on our customer success team, one of our customer success reps, can build a website in a very short amount of time using point and click functionality, using our design wizard.
But initially we just built everything from hand.
We had our first engineer build that website on his own.
There was no platform.
Omer (15:40.900)
Got it.
Okay, so it sounds like the majority of new patients that you generated just came from doing a good job at getting these doctors listed in the various places that they should have some sort of web presence.
Luke Kervin (15:58.210)
Absolutely.
So we were focused on making sure that when a patient searched for a similar doctor.
So if they were searching for OBGYNs in Santa Monica, we wanted to make sure that our OBGYNs had a profile in every possible site that that patient could be looking on.
Secondly, we built them a new website.
That website was optimized to rank highly on search engines.
That's our background.
We spent the last 10 years doing that in e commerce.
And we were also focused on converting those visitors into new patients.
And so if you look at our website solution, it's really modeled after E commerce best practices.
The homepage looks like a product page.
There's a big buy now button.
But our buy now button is schedule an online appointment.
So we have an online scheduling system that allows patients to schedule appointments 24 7.
And what we found is that that's really critical because 60% of new patients prefer to schedule online and 30% of them happen after hours.
And so we would optimize our sites for conversion.
And then we were also helping with reputation, so helping them generate reviews online, doing a little bit of social media, and then running paid ads to drive traffic into these sites.
Omer (17:06.770)
So it sounds, it sounds like a great story, right?
I mean, it sounds like things went really well, really, no hitches, no problems along the way.
And I guess part of it is that you guys, you know, this is not the first time you're building a company.
You guys have done this a couple of times before.
But was it really that easy?
Did you have, did you face any major challenges or kind of, you know, kind of shit moments along the way
Luke Kervin (17:38.380)
in that phase?
We didn't, you know, you mentioned this is not, this is not our first business.
And so we took, we really took a different approach this time.
The third time around.
We were very thoughtful about how we did things.
And one of the key lessons we had from our last two businesses was that you really have to be thoughtful about the business you start.
You have to think about the criteria of what makes a great business.
And that was a step that we missed in the first two businesses.
So we built great businesses.
We had successful exits, but we never stopped to think up front, how big is this market?
Because the size of the market really determines how big your business can be and whether you can raise funding.
And so we wanted to address a huge pain point.
We wanted to build a must have product, not a nice to have.
And we wanted to go into a market where we could be the first mover or where the market was highly fragmented and we could become the leader.
And we also thought a lot about the business model and the combination of the business model and the market and whether that led to a high valuation multiple.
So we had come from an industry with really low valuation multiples.
Different businesses are valued differently.
Software as a service because of the recurring revenue, the subscription model are valued very highly.
And so when we were thinking about Knox, the next opportunity, we were thinking about big markets and good business models and lastly, we were looking for an opportunity where we could easily validate the opportunity.
We didn't want to get into a business and find out, you know, 12 months down the road that the opportunity wasn't as great as we thought it would be.
Omer (19:11.850)
What did you do next to grow the business?
Were you still sort of getting in front of doctors and pitching this manually or were you sort of now saying, okay, let's start to figure out how we can scale this thing quicker or what happened next?
Luke Kervin (19:27.570)
Sure.
So one of our early advisors had coached us on the idea that we couldn't just sell the product ourselves if we wanted to build a case for raising capital that investors would want to see that we could hire sales reps and that they could go and sell the product.
Because as the founders and as the CEOs, you know, you're very passionate about the business and you know, early customers are more likely to sign up because you're the CEO and the founder.
So we really wanted to prove that we could build a sales team and that they could be successful.
So today we sell our product four ways.
We have a field sales initiative.
So these are reps that are in the field, scheduling demos, going in in person to doctor's offices, pitching the doctor and closing them.
We have a mid market initiative which is similar to field, with the main difference being that we're targeting larger practices.
We also sell our product through inside sales.
So these are reps that are selling over the Internet, doing web domos and closing over the phone.
And then we also have a channel sales initiative where we're selling through partners.
Those are the four key ways we sell our product today.
But when we started, we started with field sales and I really liked starting with field sales, targeting SMBs.
We started by hiring just a few reps. And I like field sales because you can really learn a lot when you're sitting in front of the customer and you might pick up on things that might not be obvious if you're selling over the phone or over the Internet.
And so we started by hiring two sales reps. And I think that was a really important decision.
What we found was that one sales rep performed phenomenally well and the other did not.
And it's interesting because if we had only hired one sales rep, we may have reached the wrong conclusion about the business.
Omer (21:19.270)
So what happened?
Why was that?
Luke Kervin (21:22.150)
Well, I think it just wasn't a good fit.
I think we hired the wrong person.
You know, it's interesting, you know, in a mature sales organization, often you'll have people generating Access or setting up the demos.
And then you may have a different personality closing that sale.
And often you'll find that someone that's good at getting access might not be a good closer.
And that's okay in a large organization.
But at the time we needed a sales rep that could do both.
And so we found one that was great at doing both and we found one that was only good at closing but couldn't gain access.
Omer (21:54.440)
Were you actually going in with them when they were pitching?
Is that how you were kind of learning more about the sort of the field sales process?
Luke Kervin (22:02.440)
Absolutely, yes.
So for the first two months, first month and a half, really, me and my business partner were out there selling with the sales reps. And sort of
Omer (22:12.660)
what sort of rate of adoption were you seeing?
Like how many new customers were you signing up on average each month?
Luke Kervin (22:23.740)
Well, this was when we were getting started and we were doing everything possible to close business.
So initially we were closing close to 50% of our pitches.
Today it's north of 30.
It's not quite 50%.
Omer (22:37.790)
Okay.
And the reason you think it's gone down is because.
Why?
Luke Kervin (22:45.230)
Well, initially we were, you know, like I said, it was me and my business partner was the founder, it was the CEO.
You know, we can tell this story better than anyone.
And I think our passion was successful in helping us close business.
We were also being very targeted.
We were in our local geography, so we were working off of referrals from people that we know and that's always helpful.
But as we've scaled across the country.
Right.
We still have maintained an excellent close ratio.
It's north of 30%, which is incredible, but it's not quite the 50% that we saw in month one.
Omer (23:17.000)
Now your co founder is Travis, right?
Luke Kervin (23:19.480)
Travis Schneider.
Omer (23:20.840)
Now did either of you have a background in sales?
Luke Kervin (23:26.260)
We neither of us have a background in sales.
You know, I think we both did sales when we were in high school through various, you know, part time jobs.
But I would say Travis is probably one of the best salespeople I've ever worked with.
Omer (23:39.300)
Really interesting.
And neither of you had a background in healthcare either, I guess?
Luke Kervin (23:45.780)
No, we, we have had absolutely no background in healthcare, but we were very thoughtful about our key hires.
So when we built our executive team, our VP of marketing, Nelson came from Kareo, which is a big emr.
Our VP of sales, Justin Welsh, came from zocdoc, a huge success in healthcare.
He was one of the first hires there.
Our VP of business development, Matt Pierce, came from Greenway, another really successful emr.
And our cfo, Jason Gardner, came from Kerio.
And so we built a team around us that had a lot of experience in healthcare.
Omer (24:20.580)
So the field sales kind of model started to prove itself.
And it's something that you're, you're continuing to do.
I'm curious about online.
Is that something that is working with this market?
Are you, are you getting a sizable part of new, new, new leads or new customers coming in through online or is it mostly outbound?
Luke Kervin (24:47.310)
No, there's a lot of inbound.
So Nelson came from Kerio, so he spent a number of years in this space, so he knows where to go to look for doctors online.
And initially for the first year, we were only doing field sales.
That's where we started.
But we knew long term that if we were going to build a very successful company, that we couldn't have field reps in every corner of the country, that we would have to learn how to sell over the Internet to sell over the phone.
And so at the end of last year, we decided we were going to run a pilot.
And so we hired six inside sales reps, we hired an inside sales manager, and we really set out to prove the model.
That's when Nelson started cranking marketing and driving inbound leads.
And it was really and still is a combination of inbound and outbound, which is a little bit strange, but it is working for us.
So we have enough leads to, to hit about 50% of our quota, and the other 50% we hit through outbound phone calls.
Omer (25:43.860)
It sounds like things went very smoothly.
You went from launching the product in terms of something you sort of pulled together.
And then we're able to start to bring on more and more customers and sort of evolve the product.
But was it again, was it all smooth sailing?
Were there, were there, when you sort of look back, were there any moments, despite the fact that you guys had already built and sold two successful companies that you still kind of look back and say, I wish we'd kind of done that differently.
Luke Kervin (26:19.420)
Yeah, I mean, look, there's always, there's always a lot of failure along the way.
And you know, we've built a really great executive team and we're very metrics focused.
So when something doesn't go right, we course correct course quickly.
You know, there's one, there was one initiative or mid market initiative.
So we started to follow the money.
At the end of 2015, we noticed that we were starting to sell larger practices and so we thought, well, it looks like there's a big opportunity here.
Let's Build a sales team and let's go out and start targeting these larger practices.
What we didn't realize at the time was that the sales cycle is different.
The solution needed to be different, that they had different needs.
And so we got really excited initially, but then found out that we didn't have the right solution and that we needed to change our selling process and also adapt our product.
So we had to backtrack a little bit, fix those things and then go back out to serve that market.
Omer (27:11.090)
If you were kind of going back to sort of the earlier days when you were growing or focusing on growing the product, what advice would you give yourself back then?
Luke Kervin (27:26.770)
The best advice is to spend as much time as possible sitting in front of your customers.
Don't wait for them to provide you their feedback.
You really have to force yourself to get out of the office and just sit down and watch how they use your product and spend as much time as possible with them.
And so we did some of that, but I wish we had done more because we would have learned more faster.
Omer (27:50.350)
Did you have some sort of system in terms of the way you were going out and talking to people?
Was it like, okay, we're going to cold call X number of, of doctor's offices every day.
This is how many appointments we're going to try to get each week.
Was it kind of like that or was it just.
Just what was it like?
Luke Kervin (28:14.700)
Are you referring to selling the product?
Yeah, yeah, absolutely.
So you know our VP of sales, Justin Welsh, he, he's very disciplined in how he manages his sales team.
They're required to make X number of phone calls per day, X number of drop ins per day, X number of emails per day.
He has this concept of gold calls with a G where he wants his team to do significant research to try to identify the customers that he thinks or that they feel will be a great fit for our product.
And they need to have 30 of those every morning.
When they show up for patient pop.
Those are the first 30 prospects that they call.
And so we have a very disciplined approach.
I mean, sales is really a metrics driven exercise, I guess.
Omer (29:00.480)
Were you guys as founders doing that and taking that sort of approach as well?
Before you had a VP of sales on.
Luke Kervin (29:05.920)
Not at all.
Not at all.
So you know, we, we had a number, so we had a target number of closes that we expected from our team.
And remember in the beginning it was really just two sales reps and we had a gong.
We had a gong in our office and that was it.
So when they closed A deal they came in at the end of today.
They rang the gong that let us know that they had closed some business.
And that was really the extent of our sales program at that time.
Omer (29:30.000)
What is the business model for you guys?
How much do you typically charge your customers these days?
And you know, what does, what does the sort of the growth opportunity in this industry look like for you?
Luke Kervin (29:51.630)
Yeah.
Okay, great.
So our business model, we're a software, as a service company, so we sell our software on a subscription basis and we charge per seat.
So for us, a seat is a healthcare provider.
So we charge $500 per month per healthcare provider for the Patient pop platform.
Omer (30:13.070)
So were you charging around the same when you, when you initially launched the product and you had like the first eight or nine physicians on board?
Luke Kervin (30:24.400)
We were roughly, roughly the same.
We've played around with discounts.
So we, we have three different plans.
So if a provider signs up for, or, sorry, if the provider pays for the year up front, we'll give them a discount.
They save 20% off that fee.
If they pay quarterly, they save a lesser discount.
And so we were playing between the range of 400 to $500 a month from the beginning.
Omer (30:48.150)
Have you tested charging more for the product?
Luke Kervin (30:54.230)
We've tested selling upsell products.
We haven't tested charging more.
We did spend a lot of time initially sort of surveying the market to see what types of products healthcare providers were paying for.
And so most practices today are paying for an electronic medical record system, and they're paying for a practice management system which manages their billing.
And we looked at what they were paying for these other products and what they had historically paid for marketing services, and that informed our pricing at patient pop.
Omer (31:26.530)
Okay, so that's the way you kind of figured out what kind of looking at the alternatives and in the mind of a provider, if they are paying or they were paying this sort of mom and pop kind of marketing shop, 500 bucks a month and you were able to provide better results?
Well, probably nobody knew what results they were providing because as I recall, there was no real way for these providers to be able to measure what sort of results they were getting anyway.
But yeah, no.
Okay.
So, yeah, I was just curious that, like, how, how far could you potentially charge people?
And if, you know, I think last time we talked about, in the early days, you were able to bring in an average of 21 new patients into a provider's practice.
I just wondered how much more that might be worth to them.
Luke Kervin (32:26.340)
Yeah, absolutely.
So there is a large opportunity for us to Charge more with specific specialties.
So cash paying specialties like plastic surgeons, cosmetic dentists, dermatologists, today we're absolutely leaving money on the table when we sell our platform to those types of providers.
And so what we're doing is we're continuing to evolve and expand our platform and we'll be creating multiple tiers in the future.
Right.
So the base tier will be 500 bucks a month, and then maybe we have one at 750 and 1250 and there'll be additional products and services layered onto the base package that will appeal to these cash paying specialties that have more money to spend on growing their practice.
Omer (33:09.830)
Now, you raised just under $24 million.
When did you, when did you go about doing that?
Luke Kervin (33:20.150)
So we raised money in multiple stages.
So initially in the very initial stage, during the validation stage, we self funded the business.
And so we worked with a team, a small team of engineers that we had worked with across our previous businesses.
They helped us build the prototype.
And then once we had that initial validation, we immediately went out and raised an angel round and we intentionally raised what I would consider to be a fairly small angel round.
I mean, these early rounds are where you take the most dilution and so you really have to be disciplined and try to raise as little money as possible.
So we raised $500,000 and we thought that that was the amount of money that we needed to take the business to the next level where we could raise more money at a higher valuation.
And so the next round, our seed round, we raised $2 million.
And that primarily came from a company called Athena Health in healthcare, they're one of the most successful technology businesses serving our target market.
They sell a solution that includes an emr, an electronic medical record and a practice management system which are non competitive products to patient pop.
And we were interested in raising money from Athena because they were looked at as a leader in healthcare technology.
And so not only did they help fund the business, they also coached us on developing our business and product.
And we were able to integrate our platform with Athenahealth and offer an integrated solution to their 80,000 healthcare providers.
And so it was really a big win to raise money from a strategic.
And then about six months after that, the business was doing really well.
We were growing phenomenally quickly and we raised our Series A.
We brought in a $20.5 million Series A from Toba Capital.
Got it.
Omer (35:12.959)
Where has that money gone?
What have you done with that money?
Luke Kervin (35:16.319)
It's really scaling the business.
So one thing we learned very quickly was that everything has to scale Together with SaaS, you can't just scale sales.
You have to scale operations.
You have to scale product support, all of that.
And so we've been growing the business.
So we've been growing our engineering and product team, we've been growing our sales team, and we've been growing our operations team to support sales.
Omer (35:38.540)
Now, I know you guys don't disclose revenue, but are there some.
Some numbers that you can share with the audience to kind of give this.
Give them a sense of the size of the business today?
Luke Kervin (35:51.160)
Absolutely.
So we hired our first employee in the fall of 2014, so less than two years ago, and today we have 142 employees.
Omer (36:02.760)
Wow, 142 employees in two years.
What areas have you been hiring in?
Is it across the board?
Have you been investing heavily in salespeople?
Luke Kervin (36:16.130)
We've been investing across the board.
I mean, we've been investing heavily in all departments.
So product, engineering, sales, and operations
Omer (36:24.930)
is this close.
I mean, I don't know about your last two businesses, but did you have that many employees in either of those businesses?
Luke Kervin (36:33.730)
We did not.
So our last business had slightly.
I think we were 17 employees in our last business at the time of acquisition.
Omer (36:41.580)
So tell me a little bit about how business and life changes for a CEO, or I guess, co CEO in your case, when you start hiring that many people that quickly.
Luke Kervin (36:56.380)
Sure.
One of the key differences is that when you're a small team, you can really micromanage.
You can almost micromanage every employee in the company when you're a team of 10 to 12 people.
But as you grow beyond that, as you get to 25, 30, 50, 75, 100 employees, at that point, it's really all about influence.
And you really have to build a scalable structure to grow your organization.
And that was one of the lessons that we learned with Patient Pop and that I would recommend strongly to companies growing beyond 25, 30 employees just to really think about training.
So when you're all sitting in a small room, training comes naturally.
Right.
People overhear each other.
They can ask questions.
But once you have a large team and different departments and people in different offices, you really have to be very focused on training to get the return on investment in your new hires.
As we started to grow really quickly, we outgrew our capacity to train naturally.
And we realized that that was a big problem, that we were hiring new employees and we weren't getting 100% and we were underserving them by not giving them the tools and training that they needed to be Successful.
And so we really doubled down on training.
So I continue to train as the founder.
We have managers that do training, but we also have dedicated training resources.
Omer (38:20.680)
So you and Travis, did you both work together on the previous two companies as well?
Luke Kervin (38:25.960)
We did.
Omer (38:26.840)
Where did you guys meet?
Luke Kervin (38:29.160)
We met through a mutual friend.
So I went to university with.
I was a roommate with Travis's roommate from university.
Omer (38:41.540)
And how did you guys decide that you were going to build a business together?
Because one of the things that I hear a lot is how difficult it is to find the right co founder.
And you guys seem to have struck gold because this is the third time you're building a company together.
So something seems to be working.
And you must like working with each other.
So how did that start?
How did you guys decide that this is what you wanted to do?
Luke Kervin (39:18.770)
Yeah.
So after university, we're both from the Toronto area in Canada.
After university, Travis had moved out here to.
He had this idea of starting a business, Star Brand Media, to sell products featured on television.
I went to work for a consulting firm in Toronto that focused on media and technology.
And I happened to be living.
I had a roommate that was Travis's roommate from university.
And so I heard about Travis and this business that he was starting, but I had never met him.
Well, it just so happened at my consulting firm, we were working with a company that was involved in interactive television.
And they had an idea, they called it T Commerce Television Commerce, of allowing viewers to purchase anything they saw on television.
Well, Travis had come to California to start that same business.
He wanted to sell what was on tv.
And so I asked my roommate for an introduction.
And I got to know Travis over a period of a couple of months, three or four months.
And we spent a lot of time on the phone every night, sort of bouncing ideas around, talking back and forth, and we became friends.
And so at one point, I came out to California and I sat down with him and suggested that he hire me to help grow that business.
And that's how we got started.
Omer (40:34.120)
Nice story.
All right, it's time for our lightning round.
I'm going to ask you a series of questions and I'd just like you to answer them as quickly as you can.
You ready?
Yeah.
What's the best piece of business advice that you've ever received?
Luke Kervin (40:48.360)
Never be comfortable.
Omer (40:50.200)
Never be comfortable.
What book would you recommend to our audience and why?
Luke Kervin (40:56.450)
I really enjoyed the Hard Thing about Hard Things by Ben Horowitz.
Mainly because Ben talks a lot about the really difficult things that you encounter as a founder.
Right the challenges that he faced across his businesses.
And there's information in there that you don't see in other leadership books.
Omer (41:15.730)
Yeah, one thing about that book is I think it's a great book, but it's like, it can really get you depressed reading that.
It's like, do I really want to go and start a business if I have to go through all this stuff?
Luke Kervin (41:26.290)
It actually had the opposite effect on me.
Omer (41:28.370)
Really?
Luke Kervin (41:29.410)
Yeah.
Because when you're running a business, like I said, you're kind of failing all the time.
It's really tough.
You're dealing with problems every single day.
And so you read these leadership books where everything is great and rosy, and then you read Ben Horowitz's book where he talks about all the hard things.
And for me, as a founder, that made me feel a lot better to recognize that there were other people out there going through exactly what I was going through.
Omer (41:52.860)
Yeah, that's good.
What's one attribute or characteristic in your mind of a successful entrepreneur?
Luke Kervin (41:59.500)
They absolutely have to be optimistic.
They have to believe that they can do the impossible.
Omer (42:04.940)
What's your favorite personal productivity tool or habit?
Luke Kervin (42:10.220)
I use Asana on a daily basis, so I like making lists and checking them off.
Omer (42:15.660)
What's a new or crazy business idea you'd love to pursue if you had the extra time?
Luke Kervin (42:20.650)
I honestly don't have one.
I love the business and the problem that we're focused on.
We go after the same market, product, and problem.
Omer (42:27.130)
But knowing that you're a serial entrepreneur, I'm sure there will be one coming down the road sometime.
What's an interesting or fun fact about you that most people don't know?
Luke Kervin (42:37.130)
I'm from Nova Scotia, Canada.
Omer (42:39.850)
What is one of your most important passions outside of your work?
Luke Kervin (42:43.770)
Outside of work, I spend all of my time with my wife and daughter.
Omer (42:48.010)
Cool.
Luke, thank you for joining me.
It's been a pleasure.
Thanks for sharing the story of Patient Pop and kind of walking us through how you guys took an idea, validated it, grew it, and into a company where you've raised $24 million, have 142 employees.
It's a great story.
If folks want to find out more about Patient Pop, they can go to Patient Pop.
And if they want to get in touch with you, what's the best way for them to do that?
Luke Kervin (43:20.580)
They can email me at Luke at patientpop.
Com.
Omer (43:24.100)
Cool.
Luke, thanks again, and I wish you all the best.
Luke Kervin (43:28.260)
Thanks for having me.
I really enjoyed our conversation.
Omer (43:29.980)
It was a pleasure.
Cheers.
