How I Built A Telehealth Service & Launched To All 50 States
My name is Guy Friedman, and I am the co-founder and CEO of SteadyMD, a B2B telehealth infrastructure provider that powers high-quality virtual care experiences for leaders and innovators in healthcare in all fifty states. Our mission is to enable our partners to scale their telehealth offerings quickly and efficiently nationwide by offering a 50-state licensed clinician workforce, ongoing clinician management, clinical operations and protocols, legal and regulatory guidance, licensing and credentialing, and world-class product and technology to make this as seamless as possible. Our partners include established healthcare organizations, labs, pharmacies, medical device manufacturers, large employers, and other healthcare innovators that want to create or optimize existing telehealth offerings.
Before SteadyMD, I founded and served as CEO of HigherNext (a test administration, online proctoring, and certification platform — which was acquired by ProctorU). While studying for my MBA, I was a part-time associate with Nextstage Capital, an early-stage venture capital firm. I was also a senior analyst for PM Group Inc., a research associate for Decision Economics Inc., and a financial analyst for Dealogic. I earned a Bachelor’s degree in Quantitative Economics and a Master’s degree in Economics from Tufts University, before earning my MBA from the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania.
SteadyMD has already proven its place in the market as the telehealth infrastructure and clinician workforce provider for the healthcare industry, as revenue has increased significantly in the past 12 months, and the company raised $35 million last year.
What's your backstory, and how did you come up with the idea?
The idea for SteadyMD first came to mind while I was leading HigherNext, a company I founded in the EdTech space. It was one of the first platforms for online exam proctoring and allowed colleges to observe test takers remotely during exams.
While building that business, I recognized the possibility of taking the same basic product but applying it to the healthcare space. I brought the idea to Yarone Goren, my longtime friend, and current co-founder, and we started researching the various applications of that virtual dynamic. We took the time to analyze and study the healthcare space through the lens of telemedicine applications and ultimately decided to launch the first iteration of SteadyMD together in 2016.
SteadyMD was the first concierge primary care service of its kind that was completely online and available in all 50 states. Over time, we successfully scaled our direct-to-consumer service, clinical operations, and world-class technology, while hiring, training, and managing a nationwide network of board-certified clinicians, all of whom shared our passion for improving access to quality care.
At the onset of COVID-19, organizations across the healthcare spectrum were racing to add virtual care services to their practices. As the demand for SteadyMD’s expertise and proven virtual care model grew, we chose to pivot the business as a B2B telehealth infrastructure provider. Now, we manage best-in-class telehealth offerings for forward-thinking healthcare providers (from traditional healthcare systems, digital health companies, testing labs, and pharmacies to large employers), while supporting clinicians.
Take us through the process of designing, prototyping, and manufacturing your first product.
Since we initially started out as a direct-to-consumer business, we first focused on building the best technology to match and virtually connect our patients with the right doctors based on their specific needs, interests, and location as efficiently and seamlessly as possible. This also required us to create an intuitive and accessible desktop and mobile user experience for our clinician workforce to ensure they wouldn’t have trouble leveraging the telehealth tools to manage the various parts of their practice (including referrals, labs, and prescriptions).
Do lots of research. Often, people launch businesses without knowing about the market, the margins, or the market share. You have to be an expert on those factors and truly convince yourself that you have a good business idea before you begin
Many of these nuances to telehealth development aren’t immediately known or understood by companies that hope to launch a virtual care offering, so — after building out the foundation for our virtual clinic and proving our capacity to scale operations and a clinician workforce across all 50 states — we decided to package and provide that infrastructure as a white-labeled telehealth solution take the complexities and heavy lifting out of these initiatives for our partners.
Describe the process of launching the business.
From my experience, there are three critical elements to successfully launch a business, and they should all occur before your first investment pitch: (1) find the right people to partner with you in bringing that vision to life, (2) research and understand the industry and problem you are trying to solve, and (3) hone in on and iterate your business idea’s value proposition every step of the way.
For me, that looked like pitching the idea for SteadyMD to Yarone and working together to test and crystallize a plan of action. We did our due diligence to dig in and study the state and structure of telehealth first to ensure our product would truly deliver value and fill that gap we saw in the industry.
When we first pivoted to the B2B space, it was an experiment to see if our clinicians could work a few hours a day on other platforms to augment their income, while building up their patient panels on our core consumer business. We quickly saw strong signals from the industry via tons of inbound requests and we knew quickly there was a massive opportunity.
Since launch, what has worked to attract and retain customers?
When we first launched our consumer primary care business, we ran a lot of marketing tests, including working with Instagram influencers before doing so became popular. We found great success within the Crossfit community and through “mommy bloggers” who promoted our services.
Once we pivoted to B2B, customer acquisition followed naturally from our value proposition: SteadyMD is the best in the industry at developing and scaling high-quality telehealth patient experiences for healthcare leaders and providers, and we have built a truly end-to-end virtual care solution.
We have technology while also providing a 50-state fully-licensed clinician workforce that can scale fast. We’ve seen a massive investment made in the digital health space over the last six years, especially as a result of the pandemic, yet we found that the myriad of tools and offerings that have sprung up all still needed the same thing: clinicians. Many digital health companies can build a compelling product but still need access to an actively engaged clinician network that is licensed to practice in the state the patient is located in.
Our expansive and trusted clinician network allows our partners to increase their capacity overnight and see more patients much more quickly (while maintaining full compliance and all necessary protocols). Once our prospective partners see that it would take years and millions of dollars to duplicate the solution we’ve already built, the decision often becomes a no-brainer.
How are you doing today, and what does the future look like?
Great question. I’d say that we are in a prime position today, and the future is nearly limitless in terms of expansion and impact. The world is finally starting to embrace the transition from in-person care to digital health, as physical appointments are increasingly being replaced with virtual models. We are proud to have been one of the companies that have made this shift possible, and now, we have positioned ourselves as the infrastructure company that will power the entire movement. We truly think this exact moment is a once-in-a-generation opportunity for us (similar to Amazon at the dawn of the eCommerce era or FedEx when society first embraced paying for immediate delivery). We see SteadyMD as a generational company.
We are laying the infrastructure for future healthcare leaders and clinicians to build off of and capitalize on the foundation we build for them. We take that role seriously. We have developed a very unique perspective of the entire telehealth industry since we work with different types of companies across the entire care spectrum. From Covid Test to Treat programs, prescription review/approvals, and medical device review/approvals to online therapy sessions and primary care and more, SteadyMD is not just the typical B2C telehealth company we started out as. Our capacity to serve the industry well into the future is much more expansive now as a B2B telehealth infrastructure provider, and that makes me very excited for what’s still to come for SteadyMD.
Through starting the business, have you learned anything particularly helpful or advantageous?
Always trust the data, and remain open to change. Business owners tend to get married or fixated on the concept that got them in the door, but to be truly successful and marketable, you must be disciplined and methodical about hearing what the market is telling you. What does the data say about your product, and how you should adjust it to the market? What is the data telling you about your customers or audience? In our case, we went from a consumer-facing business to a B2B company because we were almost maniacal about listening to the signals from the data, which propelled us to make the important transition. So I’ve learned to listen to those signals and to trust them.
What platforms do you use for your business?
I was an early adopter of Slack because I saw it as a great tool for staying connected with people and clients well before the pandemic required us to get more creative. Another productivity-focused platform we use a lot is Notion.
What have been the most influential books, podcasts, or other resources?
For books, I like The Hard Thing About Hard Things by Ben Horowitz. I also like Thinking in Bets by Annie Duke. It’s a book about thinking probabilistically, and many don’t know naturally how to think and make decisions based on this concept. In addition to these, I would also recommend Black Swan by Naseem Taleb.
Advice for other entrepreneurs who want to get started or are just starting out?
Do lots of research. Often, people launch businesses without knowing about the market, the margins, or the market share. You have to be an expert on those factors and truly convince yourself that you have a good business idea before you begin. If you can’t convince yourself, you won’t be able to get others to believe in it, either. In my case, I had thousands of ideas I never launched because I wasn’t passionate enough about them to go that extra mile.
Are you looking to hire for certain positions right now?
We’re always open to hiring great people, especially on the technology and product side. We have an incredible challenge as we look to reinvent something that hasn’t been done before. We are always open to operational talent who can contribute to our mission.
Where can we go to learn more?
If you have any questions or comments, drop a comment below!
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