Speaker 1: Welcome to Made by Women, a new podcast by the
Speaker 1: Seneca Women Podcast Network and I Heart Radio. At a
Speaker 1: moment when businesses face some of the biggest challenges in
Speaker 1: recent history, we bring you inspiring stories, practical insights, and
Speaker 1: shared learnings to help you successfully navigate in today's environment.
Speaker 1: Every Thursday, Made by Women will showcase the experiences of
Speaker 1: legendary women, entrepreneurs, fierce up and comers, and everyday women
Speaker 1: who found success their own way. Consider this your real
Speaker 1: world MBA designed for the new Now. I'm Kim Azzarelli
Speaker 1: and thanks so much for joining us today. Nothing is
Speaker 1: more important than our health, but navigating today's medical and
Speaker 1: insurance environment is challenging for most of us. It's hard
Speaker 1: to find all the information we need in one place,
Speaker 1: but Kristin Valdez is out to change that. Christian was
Speaker 1: a health industry executive who thought she knew her way
Speaker 1: around the system, but when her young daughter had a
Speaker 1: health crisis, Kristen had a hard time getting her hands
Speaker 1: on the data she needed to help her daughter. Christian's
Speaker 1: daughter came through the emergency, but that was the impetus
Speaker 1: for Christen to start be well. Be Well is a
Speaker 1: B two B company that gives consumers access to their
Speaker 1: healthcare data in a way they can understand and make
Speaker 1: the best use of. B Well has been thriving ever
Speaker 1: since Christen started it in two thousand fifteen. This year,
Speaker 1: at a time when healthcare is on all of our minds,
Speaker 1: Kristen was honored by Springboard Enterprises and a Centure as
Speaker 1: one of the women who are transforming industries. Enjoy my
Speaker 1: conversation with Kristin Valdez, founder and CEO of b Well.
Speaker 1: Thanks so much for joining me, Thanks for having me.
Speaker 1: So I've heard your company being referred to as the
Speaker 1: company we've all been waiting for, So tell us what
Speaker 1: does be well do. Be Well is a connected health
Speaker 1: platform that enables healthcare industry stakeholders like insurance companies or
Speaker 1: providers to provide the populations that they serve with a
Speaker 1: new front end to healthcare. And what that means is
Speaker 1: that their individuals can now download the application and be
Speaker 1: Well can get to work for them. So we collect
Speaker 1: and aggregate all of their healthcare data and information in
Speaker 1: one place. We go out and collect their insurance information,
Speaker 1: there political information from their providers, labs pharmacies. We collect
Speaker 1: information on things like social determinants and preferences and likelihoods
Speaker 1: and risk profiles, and then we surface those two consumers
Speaker 1: in a manner in which they can understand because most
Speaker 1: health data and insurance data was not written for the
Speaker 1: average human being to understand it um and so we
Speaker 1: create trend lines, and we give useful educational information about
Speaker 1: how to understand and interpret your own data. And then
Speaker 1: we connect people to services, whether they are in person,
Speaker 1: virtually UH provided or digital like the rise of the
Speaker 1: new digital therapeutics, so that we can help bring care
Speaker 1: based on a user's own data needs to them directly
Speaker 1: in a manner that matches their lifestyle. Wow, well, now
Speaker 1: I can see why this is the company we've all
Speaker 1: been waiting for. So you started on this journey about
Speaker 1: six years ago. How did you get into this? I've
Speaker 1: had the great fortune of being a healthcare executive for
Speaker 1: the last two decades, so healthcare was not new to me.
Speaker 1: But when my own child was born with an autoimmune
Speaker 1: condition and I could not successfully navigate the health care
Speaker 1: delivery system even as an industry expert, I realized that
Speaker 1: we were failing the average family, that we weren't giving
Speaker 1: them the tools that they needed. To take care of, protect, diagnose,
Speaker 1: and control the disease burden of their loved ones. UM
Speaker 1: And so my daughter had a near fatal incident because
Speaker 1: to electronic medical record systems, I two of her providers
Speaker 1: systems could not communicate with one another UH And it
Speaker 1: was just an average everyday occurrence of an antibiotic for
Speaker 1: a sinus infection that happened to be contraindicated to a
Speaker 1: disease that was sitting in a specialist system that her
Speaker 1: primary care didn't know about, and her body killed off
Speaker 1: all of its own blood platelets and she nearly led
Speaker 1: to death. And at that point I realized that we
Speaker 1: could do better, and that these weren't technology problems, but
Speaker 1: they were business problems, and that we needed to focus
Speaker 1: squarely on the consumer and give people the control and
Speaker 1: the right to protect their loved ones by giving them
Speaker 1: access to their own data, and by doing that, we
Speaker 1: could create a truly curated, personalized experience for each individual.
Speaker 1: In this country, it seems like a lot of times
Speaker 1: when you want to do something that is disruptive is
Speaker 1: what you're talking about, there's a lot of resistance. How
Speaker 1: did you get started and what were the early days
Speaker 1: like so the early days were full of a lot
Speaker 1: of education. Um. You know, the team that at b
Speaker 1: Well has been her in healthcare, I said for quite
Speaker 1: some time, so we had a lot of credibility. We
Speaker 1: weren't outsiders just coming into disrupt an industry. We were
Speaker 1: insiders saying we have to do better and that you
Speaker 1: can't really disrupt an industry. It's really about making incremental
Speaker 1: change and doing things one step at a time, which
Speaker 1: is how these big giant industries can um can actually
Speaker 1: start to transform. So we did a lot of education,
Speaker 1: We got involved with the regulatory and the policy side
Speaker 1: of things, and we volunteer our time on the Karen Alliance,
Speaker 1: which is a really great organization that is designed for
Speaker 1: enambling and empowering consumers with their healthcare data, and we
Speaker 1: helped to shape what is how healthcare data is being
Speaker 1: transacted today through open API infrastructure, which did not exist
Speaker 1: in the many decades that I was involved in healthcare
Speaker 1: and data transmission. So for the first time in history,
Speaker 1: we put a penalty on providers and payers if they
Speaker 1: failed to share data um with consumers upon their request,
Speaker 1: and we dictated the technology standard to be utilized to
Speaker 1: do it, and by doing that, we're now giving consumers
Speaker 1: the freedom to choose any application that they want to
Speaker 1: that they feel provides value in their lives from healthcare perspective,
Speaker 1: and can authorize those applications to get their data to
Speaker 1: personalize the experience. So take me to the beginning. Tell
Speaker 1: us about your first customer and how did you get started.
Speaker 1: Our first customer was a health plan that was created
Speaker 1: under the Affordable Care Act, and they were what is
Speaker 1: known as a medical home model, and so we had
Speaker 1: the opportunity to launch our product from a consumer experience
Speaker 1: perspective with both an insurance company and a provider on
Speaker 1: the other side, so that we were able to identify
Speaker 1: risks and needs for individuals and their families and then
Speaker 1: connect them seamlessly into the care that they needed in
Speaker 1: a local manner to help make those appointments and scheduling easy.
Speaker 1: And what was it like to create a consumer centric
Speaker 1: experience in technology and how there's a lot that goes
Speaker 1: into that. How did you think about that and how
Speaker 1: did you put the consumer at the center of everything.
Speaker 1: So one is that we're learning every day where it's
Speaker 1: a constant journey for consumers because we're not all alike
Speaker 1: and so we knew that we needed to gather a
Speaker 1: lot of information around what the challenges were in accessing
Speaker 1: the healthcare delivery system today and what the frustration points
Speaker 1: were for consumers, and we architected a our first user
Speaker 1: journeys and experiences around the things that are most frustrating
Speaker 1: to users, which is, I never have all the information
Speaker 1: to fill out that form when I go to the
Speaker 1: doctor's office. If I can order a pizza and track
Speaker 1: it to my home from a delivery perspective, why can't
Speaker 1: I make a doctor's appointment online? We spent a lot
Speaker 1: of time realizing that the frustrations were. They seemed like
Speaker 1: such simple things, but healthcare is very complicated, and it's
Speaker 1: very fragmented and siloed, and there's lots of different systems,
Speaker 1: so there was no one size fits all and we
Speaker 1: needed to And the reason that we went into being
Speaker 1: a B two B business was because we could integrate
Speaker 1: our solution with the existing workflows of an existing provider
Speaker 1: or an existing pair, and we could transform the front
Speaker 1: end so that it was the easy button. It was
Speaker 1: simple for consumers, but we could do all the tough
Speaker 1: integrations with all the different systems on the back end
Speaker 1: and the consumer really never needed to see them. And
Speaker 1: has it been difficult to convince healthcare systems or large
Speaker 1: health organizations to take this route In the beginning, I
Speaker 1: would say that there was a lot of learning and
Speaker 1: education in the first couple of years, But in the
Speaker 1: last twelve to twenty four months, it is it has
Speaker 1: become the forefront of where health systems and insurance companies
Speaker 1: are going realizing that we need to move from a
Speaker 1: system centric health care system to one that is person centric,
Speaker 1: and that we have the data and the technologies to
Speaker 1: stop operating behind the curve in healthcare where you know
Speaker 1: data comes in every month and instead moved to real
Speaker 1: time streaming insights. And part of that is just the
Speaker 1: evolution of technology sensors, the ability to track insights on
Speaker 1: health on an individual in real time, and how we
Speaker 1: now integrate that into the healthcare delivery model is at
Speaker 1: the forefront of a lot of executive thinking and certainly
Speaker 1: at the top of their budgets, because what consumers really
Speaker 1: want is something that's personalized to their own experience and
Speaker 1: that is helpful to them at the time that they needed.
Speaker 1: So you mentioned the last twelve four months, how has
Speaker 1: the last six months impacted your business. How has COVID
Speaker 1: impacted things? COVID has accelerated the need for digital health
Speaker 1: UM by what is more than probably ten years time
Speaker 1: in a normal setting. And that's because for the first
Speaker 1: time healthcare shut down, it wasn't recession proof. Um. You know,
Speaker 1: hospital shut down, doctors shut down. People weren't able to
Speaker 1: get care and the only way to get out to
Speaker 1: somebody who was in need was to was virtually and
Speaker 1: in their homes. And so the last six months have
Speaker 1: proven that, you know, not only our hospitals financially impacted
Speaker 1: when things like COVID hit, but that if they weren't
Speaker 1: already set up with functions like telemedicine, and they didn't
Speaker 1: have remote patient monitoring and they didn't have a way
Speaker 1: to connect with their patient pace, that they were not
Speaker 1: only losing a lot of revenues, but they couldn't reach
Speaker 1: out and take care of the populations that they're committed
Speaker 1: to taking care of because they had no good way
Speaker 1: to reach them. So the adoption of you know, even
Speaker 1: providers willing to use technology to reach out to patients
Speaker 1: went from somewhere below to over out of necessity. And
Speaker 1: what that meant was that not only are providers ready
Speaker 1: and able to use these technologies, but now patients are
Speaker 1: willing to receive them and finding that they are convenient
Speaker 1: and that they don't have to spend a lot of
Speaker 1: time waiting in a doctor's office or making appointments by phone.
Speaker 1: That they can talk to their doctor virtually and still
Speaker 1: get their medications in some cases, and they they like it.
Speaker 1: And so the acceleration of technology from covid Um, I
Speaker 1: would say, has really put this on fire in a
Speaker 1: way that we've never seen before. It's incredible. I mean,
Speaker 1: it's an interesting period in history because you see so
Speaker 1: much difficulty and so much hardship on people, and at
Speaker 1: the same time there's so much acceleration going on that
Speaker 1: there's a lot of optimism that we could come out
Speaker 1: of this in a better place. Um, despite the hardship
Speaker 1: that we're all going through. We'll be back with Seneca's
Speaker 1: Made by women after this short break. Now, I want
Speaker 1: to just bring you back to what it's like to
Speaker 1: run a company like this. You've had a lot of success,
Speaker 1: UM and obviously an incredible product. You've really broken through.
Speaker 1: You also were able to raise a lot of capital.
Speaker 1: What was it like in the early days trying to
Speaker 1: get funding and do you have any recommendations for other
Speaker 1: entrepreneurs who are looking to do the same. The early
Speaker 1: days are tough, and you know, the advice that I
Speaker 1: would have is right now, especially in healthcare and in
Speaker 1: digital health, is that it really does depend on where
Speaker 1: you are in the country. UM. There early stage capital
Speaker 1: tends to be localized, and we sit in Baltimore, which
Speaker 1: has an emerging ecosystem of startups, but it's not one
Speaker 1: that is mature. UM. So I ended up having to
Speaker 1: travel across the country to other areas in order to
Speaker 1: find the capital that we needed to you know, kind
Speaker 1: of get off the starting block. UM. We were very
Speaker 1: fortunate in that we came across Springboard very early UM
Speaker 1: in our lifespan, and they were incredibly helpful to us
Speaker 1: um as a network of you know, women mentors to
Speaker 1: me personally, but also in getting us connected and helping
Speaker 1: us to understand the landscape and making those introductions for us.
Speaker 1: So I would definitely encourage any organization, especially if you're female, lead,
Speaker 1: to work with organizations like a Springboard who can help
Speaker 1: facilitate what you need at the time that you need
Speaker 1: it because it's incredibly helpful instead of just trying to
Speaker 1: look for your local angel groups. UM. Because at the
Speaker 1: time we were raising in Baltimore, our angel group was
Speaker 1: not very active, so and we only really had to
Speaker 1: UM and so UM. You know, it was nice that
Speaker 1: we could meet people all across the country who we
Speaker 1: otherwise wouldn't have had exposure to. So early days, you
Speaker 1: get some early investment capital and you've just done another
Speaker 1: very significant raise, I understand. We did. Yeah, in February,
Speaker 1: we completed a raise just over sixteen million dollars UM.
Speaker 1: We were very excited about it because we were able
Speaker 1: to raise from strategic companies representing pharmacies as well as
Speaker 1: health systems. We've always focused all of our financing rounds
Speaker 1: ensuring that we could include existing customers because we want
Speaker 1: them to be on this journey with us, So we
Speaker 1: were excited to be able to do that again. Congratulations,
Speaker 1: that's a an accomplishment. How are you able to scale?
Speaker 1: We are still scaling, UM, And it's always a balance
Speaker 1: between the number of clients that you're bringing on in
Speaker 1: the size of those clients along with bringing on and
Speaker 1: finding top talent. UM. You know, I've always been a
Speaker 1: big fan of waiting and finding the right person versus
Speaker 1: just growing for the sake of growing. But we're also
Speaker 1: in a very competitive marketplace because digital health is accelerating
Speaker 1: across the world, and so there's a you know, digital
Speaker 1: health has not been while it's been talked about for
Speaker 1: many years, believe it or not, there are very few
Speaker 1: healthcare institutions that are cloud based using AI and machine
Speaker 1: learning and that have um these structure and the framework
Speaker 1: to really adopt digital health. They're getting very serious about
Speaker 1: it now, but because it's not something that's been mature,
Speaker 1: there's not a lot of people with a ton of
Speaker 1: experience in it. So it's a nice combination and growth
Speaker 1: of bringing in people from outside industries that are very
Speaker 1: good at this, like from the travel were financial industries,
Speaker 1: and by bringing folks with the experience on the technology
Speaker 1: side and marrying them up with the folks that have
Speaker 1: been in healthcare for as long as they have, you
Speaker 1: can really accelerate your growth and open up your recruiting
Speaker 1: capabilities to really support that. But it is an interesting
Speaker 1: dynamic growing when the technology is changing in an entire
Speaker 1: ecosystem at the same time that you know, the people
Speaker 1: with a lot of the deep knowledge have not utilized
Speaker 1: the technologies needed to move into the true personalized digital landscape.
Speaker 1: That's super interesting now in recruiting this talent. Obviously you
Speaker 1: have a vision and it seems like the world is
Speaker 1: sort of catching up with your vision. Where do you
Speaker 1: see this going over the next five years and how
Speaker 1: do you see it scaling over the next five years.
Speaker 1: We anticipate UM further expanding on what we call be connected,
Speaker 1: which is our healthcare marketplace. UM. We have the ability
Speaker 1: as consumers to utilize products like Amazon and Walmart you
Speaker 1: know that now are even beyond their own internal products
Speaker 1: and have a marketplace as well. But in healthcare, there's
Speaker 1: no centralized marketplace for people to go to. So when
Speaker 1: healthcare happens to them, which is unfortunately the environment we
Speaker 1: live in as we we are sick or a loved
Speaker 1: one is sick, or a friend is sick, and then
Speaker 1: we deal with that when it happens. We don't proactively say, hey,
Speaker 1: I've got ten minutes free to google the Internet. I
Speaker 1: wonder if I become a caregiver, if there's an app
Speaker 1: for that that can help me. Right. We don't prepare.
Speaker 1: We don't prepare for healthcare, and so there needs to
Speaker 1: be a trusted place where people can go to understand
Speaker 1: the great technologies that exist out there, because unfortunately, people
Speaker 1: with chronic conditions or acute conditions, or who are suffering,
Speaker 1: you know right now with anxiety and depression which is
Speaker 1: through the roof with COVID across the world right now,
Speaker 1: they need to know that there are great organizations out
Speaker 1: there from a digital perspective as well as a virtual
Speaker 1: perspective that can help them. And so we need we're
Speaker 1: working right now to expand our marketplace to continue to
Speaker 1: make those personalized matter just based on a user's preferences
Speaker 1: and their likelihoods, so that they can easily find the
Speaker 1: kind of care that fits into their lifestyle, whether it's
Speaker 1: in person, virtual or digital. Well, that's that sounds pretty exciting.
Speaker 1: So is there anything that you would tell an entrepreneur
Speaker 1: in this moment, given what you've seen and given your
Speaker 1: experience of the last six years. Obviously there's always a
Speaker 1: lot of ups and downs, But is there anything in
Speaker 1: particular that you face that you felt was really difficult
Speaker 1: um and how did you overcome that? I think well, one,
Speaker 1: in the health care space, it used to be very
Speaker 1: difficult to break into this space. And so my advice
Speaker 1: to an entrepreneur who's interested in fixing something that they
Speaker 1: feel is nonsensical in healthcare, and trust me, there's a
Speaker 1: lot of that that now is a really good time
Speaker 1: to come in because there is more innovation happening and
Speaker 1: you will be doing a lot less educating, but you
Speaker 1: also have more of the tools available, like if you
Speaker 1: can gather consumer trust and you can do things in
Speaker 1: a secure, private manner, that you can break in UM
Speaker 1: and have the consumers enable you because you're adding value
Speaker 1: in their lives, and then that makes it easier to
Speaker 1: go into kind of the larger health care stakeholders in
Speaker 1: the country and break in. So my advice would be,
Speaker 1: you know, when you see a problem you know that
Speaker 1: you want to solve, don't be afraid of it because
Speaker 1: health care has been so difficult in the past. Because
Speaker 1: we do see that opening up and we want to
Speaker 1: encourage and innovation growth mindset where digital health applications can
Speaker 1: come onto the marketplace UM significantly in greater rates than
Speaker 1: they have before in order to help to solve for
Speaker 1: what is our current sick care system and really move
Speaker 1: it into one that is personalized and that meets a
Speaker 1: consumer need. Well, that's great advice. Talking to you is
Speaker 1: making me optimistic about the future of my own personal
Speaker 1: health and everyone's health. Is there something that's making you
Speaker 1: optimistic in this moment. There's a lot of things making
Speaker 1: me optimistic in this moment. I can tell you we
Speaker 1: are uniquely positioned to see what's top of mind for
Speaker 1: imp lawyers and for insurance companies, for retail pharmacies, for
Speaker 1: health systems and providers. And what I'm most excited about
Speaker 1: is we're seeing health systems rebrand themselves as population health companies.
Speaker 1: We're seeing retail pharmacies invest in things like primary care
Speaker 1: and connected health. We're seeing that everyone across the spectrum
Speaker 1: is trying to do a better job at consumerism and
Speaker 1: being able to put the consumer at the center, which
Speaker 1: they've been talking about for a long time. So what
Speaker 1: makes me optimistic is that new business models are emerging.
Speaker 1: People are disrupting their own business models in order to
Speaker 1: help make things more affordable and more convenient for consumers
Speaker 1: across the board, and they want to do it quickly,
Speaker 1: which is not something that I've seen in my two decades,
Speaker 1: but is definitely on the here and now so Christian. Earlier,
Speaker 1: you mentioned your participation in Springboard in the critical role
Speaker 1: that Springboard Enterprises has has played in introducing you to
Speaker 1: the right people at the right time, and you read
Speaker 1: we were recognized as a Springboard honoree. Why is that
Speaker 1: important to you and what does it meant to you? Well,
Speaker 1: first of all, I'm extremely humbled and honored by that
Speaker 1: because Springboard is made up of some of the brightest,
Speaker 1: most motivated, talented women on the planet, and so to
Speaker 1: be recognized by them as a woman transforming an industry,
Speaker 1: it truly matters, UM and I and I take that
Speaker 1: very seriously. Um. Springboard has been so instrumental, instrumental to
Speaker 1: our overall success because there are global organization and the
Speaker 1: connections and the networks that they have run so deep
Speaker 1: that there if there's ever anything that I need, I
Speaker 1: can reach out and probably have a hundred answers in
Speaker 1: the same day and people willing to help. And that
Speaker 1: really helps entrepreneurs to UM in the true sense of
Speaker 1: the word, to springboard their ability to be successful. UM.
Speaker 1: So it's just an incredible honor given the number of
Speaker 1: amazing women that I've met in my journey with Springboard
Speaker 1: over the last five years. Well, it's just so great
Speaker 1: to talk to you, to learn about be well. Congratulations
Speaker 1: on everything you're doing, and thank you for everything you're doing.
Speaker 1: We look forward to seeing what comes next. Thanks for
Speaker 1: having me. What a great perspective. We can all look
Speaker 1: forward to a healthier future. Thanks to Kristin Valdez, you're
Speaker 1: the top three takeaways I got from the conversation. First,
Speaker 1: Christy reminds us that major disruptive change happens one step
Speaker 1: at a time, and meaningful change requires flexibility, planning, and
Speaker 1: constantly educating yourself. Second, when you're seeking capital, Christan suggests
Speaker 1: looking beyond your immediate geographic area and look for more
Speaker 1: than just funding. Kristan tells us how Springboard Enterprises was
Speaker 1: able to connect her to a network of leaders who
Speaker 1: provided her with invaluable advice and support. Finally, be willing
Speaker 1: to disrupt your own business model in order to make
Speaker 1: things more affordable and more convenient for consumers. There's always
Speaker 1: room in the marketplace for a company that can do that.
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