Clint Phillips, CEO of Medi.ci – Curing Health+Care, an end-to-end virtual care medical platform, is no stranger to dealing with the unexpected. 

In 2009, when his two-day-old daughter Gabi suffered a stroke that paralyzed the right side of her body, the need to provide her with adequate care led him to found 2nd.MD, which recently sold to Accolade for $460M. 2nd.MD, which helped thousands of people gain access to high-quality second opinions, set Phillips on the path of healthcare reform. So, when the pandemic hit, and his new venture Medi.ci came up against challenges, he was ready to adapt. He will provide those experiences at a Founders Network keynote talk on December 15. Register with Founders Network to know if you qualify for full time membership.

To learn more about how to deal with the unexpected in your startup, see if you qualify for membership and check out the webinar from December 15. 

In his webinar, Phillips covered:

• How to examine your company’s vision with objectivity
• Ways to approach investor relationships during a pivot
• What Elon Musk said about failure and how it can help you
• How to cultivate a flexible founder mindset

“We had to take a hard look in the mirror. We had not raised all that money around changing healthcare to be a little niche product in a doctor's office. We had to do something meaningful that we could be proud of.” - @HBD_Clinics
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A pandemic pivot

Medi.ci was planned as a SaaS business, with medical practices simply buying the platform and using it without oversight. But as a result of COVID-19, practitioners shifted to medical care via video, and telemedicine laws changed to facilitate new needs. Phillips watched as entities like Zoom and low-budget apps captured a large amount of the market share. He felt he needed to do more than offer doctors a software platform. He wanted to model the perfect medical practice, helping the staff and patients fully maximize its benefits.

“We had to take a hard look in the mirror. We had not raised all that money around changing healthcare to be a little niche product in a doctor’s office. We had to do something meaningful that we could be proud of,” he says. 

To do this, the company required a much larger vision, what Phillips calls “a major pivot.” They had to go back to shareholders and admit that some of their assumptions had been wrong, and that to affect change, they would need to own the value chain, to hire primary care doctors and specialists, train them and build a vertically integrated model.

“We were going from being the WhatsApp of healthcare to being the Mayo clinic of healthcare,” he says. 

“We had the first few people call us. Nobody had ever called us. We had banged on every door, but then customers began asking us to solve their problems. It's not a future guarantee, but it feels good.” - @HBD_Clinics
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The challenges of change

As exciting as this felt, Phillips describes a humbling process: “We had funding; we had the team, but we were all wrong. I had to lose credibility with some investors who felt we were changing our tune.” The change also meant that half of the employees were no longer needed, including the sales team hired to sell the platform to medical practices. Although those individuals were able to get other work quickly, Phillips says laying them off was not easy.

Still, the team trusted their instincts. It helped that Phillips had experiences at other companies with investors who initially doubted a direction, but were pleased with the long-term success. “One day they got a check and were like: “Oh, you’re a genius,” Phillips recalls. 

“So, you spent $20 million on the wrong platform. It’s unpleasant, but it's behind you now. You can't beat yourself up every day. Now, you have to go forward.” - @HBD_Clinics
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Feeling the wind in your sails

With time, the difficult move began to pay off, says Phillips, and Medi.ci began to “feel a little wind in our sails.” 

“All of a sudden, we had the first few people call us. Nobody had ever called us. We had banged on every door, but then customers began asking us to solve their problems. It’s not a future guarantee, but it feels good.”

Phillips recommends the book Getting to Plan B: Breaking Through to a Better Business Model to other founders dealing with a similar fork in the road. Its main thesis is that flexibility is key for a founder and that “you’re increasingly likely to find your right model when you aren’t as bullheaded around your original idea.” He notes that it is natural for founders to want to stick to their original idea, but that humility is crucial, recalling that Elon Musk famously said that there was a 50% chance that Tesla would fail. 

Today, Phillips advises other founders to allow their perspectives to change. He tells of some expert advice he received from one highly successful investor. “So, you spent $20 million on the wrong platform. It’s unpleasant, but it’s behind you now. You can’t beat yourself up every day. Now, you have to go forward.”

To learn more about how how to deal with the unexpected in your startup, see if you qualify for membership and check out the webinar from December 15. 

Cybersecurity expert Alon Arvatz has long anticipated threats before they happen, but as Co-founder of threat intelligence platform, IntSights, he has also learned to look to the past.  

“People often talk to founders about the importance of pivoting, of doing something different in response to market changes, but sometimes you just need to get back to your roots,” he says. 

IntSights was recently acquired by Rapid7 for $335M, taking its place as a highly successful player in the fast-growing cybersecurity market. But, according to Arvatz, who is now Senior Director of Product Management at Rapid7, there was a time when the company temporarily lost its way. In his role leading strategy, Arvatz helped realign the company with its original mission. At a Founders Network keynote presentation on January 18, Arvatz provided his advice about how to use the past to help steer your team to a successful future.

“People often talk to founders about the importance of pivoting, of doing something different in response to market changes, but sometimes you just need to get back to your roots.” - @IntSights
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Democratizing threat intelligence

In 2014, Arvatz and his Co-Founder Guy Nizan, who trained together in an elite Israel Defense Forces intelligence unit, decided to help small and mid-sized companies upgrade their cybersecurity efforts.

 

To learn more about how to use the past to help steer your team to a successful future, see if you qualify for membership and check out the webinar from January 18.

“Companies need to do more than secure their own environment. They also need to look at ‘enemy territory,’ to understand what threats bad actors are planning. Based on that, we can also prevent attacks before they happen,” he explains. 

Arvatz says that while large enterprises have the resources to employ 5-20 team members to spend all day logging on to hacker forums on the dark web, scanning social media and searching through data sharing platforms and phishing repositories, SMEs just can’t afford that. Even when smaller companies succeed at identifying a threat, they often fall behind trying to neutralize it. “If it’s late, it is not intelligence,” says Arvatz, quoting one of his mottos.

IntSights leverages technology like automated scraping of data from the web, AI and NLP to analyze data and isolate only the threats that are relevant to customers. The team also developed software to automatically neutralize that threat, such as contacting Facebook to remove a fake social media profile or deleting data from a phishing website. Aiming at companies with small security teams, the IntSights platform was purposefully designed to be simple, with zero configuration.

“Without fully understanding what we were doing, we built a platform that would allow organizations of any size to leverage threat intelligence, which is something that didn’t exist before. We sought to democratize threat intelligence, so any company could benefit, not only giants like Citibank and Bank of America,” Arvatz says.

“Without fully understanding what we were doing, we built a platform that would allow organizations of any size to leverage threat intelligence, which is something that didn't exist before.” - @IntSights
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Why bigger isn’t always better

As IntSights grew, it began to market itself to bigger companies – despite the original plan to serve mostly mid-sized clients. “Everyone said: ‘The big contracts are with the biggest enterprises. You need to aim higher,’ so that’s where we took the company,” Arvatz recalls.

Problems soon began to emerge, from released features that were not impactful enough for existing customers to a misalignment between product, sales and marketing. Soon, there was noticeable “friction” between the sales and product teams. 

Feeling that a significant change was necessary, Arvatz consulted with a member of the board directors as well as an industry expert, before deciding to take bold action. “Sometimes, you just need to trust yourself. We realized that we needed to go back to our origins and focus on mid-sized enterprises because they’re really the ones who need us and can best benefit from our technology,” he says. 

The fact that those companies represent a bigger portion of the market, with some eventually set to become tomorrow’s large companies, added to the decision. IntSights is also furthering its expertise aimed at specific sectors, an area of growth that fits well with their original mission.

“Sometimes, you just need to trust yourself. We realized that we needed to go back to our origins and focus on mid-sized enterprises because they're really the ones who need us and can best benefit from our technology.” - @IntSights
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Finding your way home

Having helped his company right its course, Arvatz is often asked to help other founders reconsider their approaches to strategy. He recommends renewed belief in your own thoughts, humility and a willingness to consult with outside experts, when necessary.

“At the end of the day, you know your company best. You took the company this far. Trust that with your own common sense, you can take it further,” he says.

Ongoing communication with the whole team is also crucial, especially when realigning  product and marketing teams. “Get input from everyone that’s going to be affected and create iterations. At every step, keep them in the loop, And if you do that, you ensure that once the product is out, everyone is on the same page and running in the same direction.”

Today, as he continues to work with his team to identify their ideal customers, he is struck by the path they’ve traveled.

“When you start something, you look at the market, see pain points and make the decision to help your customers by solving a problem. Sometimes, you can do a whole market analysis and try to rebuild your DNA, only to realize the same things you knew at the beginning.”

Register with Founders Network to know if you qualify for full time membership and learn:

• Why SMEs may represent the future of threat intelligence
• What all companies can learn from the cybersecurity market
• How to handle friction between product and marketing teams
• When and how to trust your founder instincts 

To learn more about how to use the past to help steer your team to a successful future, see if you qualify for membership and check out the webinar from January 18.

Moderator:

Pete Crawford

Pete is a 7-year cannabis industry veteran as VP of Supply Chain, VP of Professional Services, and CEO. He is a named inventor on two cannabis industry device patents, and has held multiple technology company leadership roles prior to his cannabis journey. Bend Oregon resident, father, husband, traveler, live music lover, and SaaS enthusiast.