The world wide web is an incubator for exceptional opportunities and that is seen with the website: Salubri. The online platform gives patients an alternative option to get help from qualified psychologists, dieticians and therapists. This not only gives patients an important opportunity but also gives one to the three creators of the website. All three co-creators started with comfortable jobs (see bio below) in other occupations but jumped at the idea of being able to help patients with their skills and idea.
Career Insider Business recently spoke with one of the creators: Michael Levine about their important decision and the experiences he got from his past jobs, regrets and tips for aspiring e-entrepreneurs. Also, Levine reveals the experiences and plans for Salubri.
BIOS:
Michael Levine
Degree: McGill BComm & chartered accountant
Previous job:
- PricewaterhouseCoopers in their assurance group for 3 years.
Brett Goldenberg
Degree: McGill B.Comm in Information system
Previous job:
- Bombardier
- Implementing business process management software globally for Interfacing
Nick D’Urbano
Degree: Concordia B.Comm, graduated with Valedictorian honours in 2009)
Previous job: Deloitte in their M&A group
How did you come up with the idea?
The idea has been an evolution of brainstorm sessions, dating back to December 2009 (in fact, I still have the original minutes from that meeting! It’s funny to look at because the Salubri concept now is completely different from what was originally discussed!). Our idea always revolved around health, particularly as a result of our first-hand experience entering the workforce from university.
Basically, coming out of university (which we can now truly say are the golden years of youth as mentioned above) and going into the workforce, most of us recent graduates were extremely motivated and psyched to enter the workforce. However we came to a stark realization, most employees just a few years senior to us generally had one thing in common: they were either very unhealthy, miserable, and often times, a combination of both! Of course we ignored this and went on with our days, until we slowly evolved and became unhealthier and increasingly depressed as time moved on. We then realized that something had to be done about this. This led to the creation of Salubri, a democratized approach to allow patients the flexibility in choosing the perfect practitioner for them and to help patients get back on the road to health living (whether it be mental or physical health).
Why the name Salubri?
This goes back to our initial brainstorming sessions. We must have come up with hundreds upon hundreds of possibilities, but we were never in love with any of them. We then started translating the names we had originally come up with into different languages, and when translating the word “healthy” from English to Italian, the word Salubri came up. We immediately fell in love with the name, purchased the domain name that night and began discussing our branding strategy.
How does a healthcare practitioner deal with not forming a face-to-face relationship with a patient?
Studies have shown that having online sessions with healthcare practitioners can be twice as effective as the traditional face-to-face sessions. In fact, we blogged about this on April 17, 2011 and I invite you to read the article by referring to the following hyperlink: http://blog.salubri.com/online-therapy-twice-as-effective-as-traditio
Furthermore, our platform helps tighten the feedback loop, by allowing practitioners to communicate with their patients in a real-time basis without the need for an in-person visit. Our platform’s technology helps strengthen the relationship between patients and practitioners by leveraging technology. Practitioners no longer have to deal with the nitty gritty details of managing their practices (marketing, technology, etc). The platform is an all-encompassing tool that, in addition to being a communication platform, is also a patient-management tool (Salubri helps with scheduling sessions, handling payments, soliciting new business, etc.). The result for the practitioner will be more time to focus on what really matters, the patient.
How much of this platform is created because of pure altruism and how do you guys have empathy towards your users as you guys come from a different world?
This question can be answered with an anecdote that all three co-founders have experienced. Our university years can be seen as the golden years of youth. The balance between studying and life was very easily managed, and all three of us had starting positions coming out of university (therefore we had no real post-graduation stress). We were excited to start working. As we entered the workforce, we noticed that many people senior to us did not share the same excitement, in fact many of them were either unhappy, unhealthy, or very often, a combination of both. Being surrounded by these people, in different companies, the three of us came to the realization that this demeanour in the workplace appeared to be an epidemic.
Therefore, we can genuinely relate to the users of the platform, particularly those that are driven here to help with work-life balancing. When starting a career out of university, its extremely difficult to be a top performer, keep in touch with all your friends, continue volunteering, take additional courses and stay healthy (both physical and mentally). This transition can be extremely challenging, and we believe the software that we’ve created can help cope with the change. The platform is designed to help all patients connect with their practitioners, regardless of their situation, but we can specifically relate to those that have undergone similar paths to us. While we certainly won’t be able to share all the same sentiments as the patients that use the Salubri platform, we were in a similar situation to many of those patients that are driven to the platform (especially since one of our primary drivers is to drive patients through corporate partnerships). Creating this platform helps facilitate the initial connection and communication between the practitioner and the patient.
Getting health care practitioners comfortable with your platform must not have been easy. What was the process like?
In order to get Health Practitioners comfortable, we went through an extensive “soft launch”, whereby practitioners were given personalized assistance to help get their profiles up and running on the platform. Once a practitioner signs up on the platform, Salubri will verify all their credentials externally (ie – an Ontario-based Psychologist’s license number will be confirmed with the College of Psychologists) and then that profile will be activated on the platform. Throughout the entire profile-creation phase, Salubri’s team members are available to help practitioners. We have many tools built directly into the platform to offer live help with the practitioners (such as a live chat platform). We’ve also had some webinar sessions with multiple practitioners at once to help get their profiles up and running on the platform. We’ve created some demo videos (http://salubri.com/public/content/demovideos.aspx) to help practitioners get a feel for how the platform works.
Based on the sessions that have occurred on the platform to date, the feedback received has been very positive. We have not experienced any major hiccups to date in terms of service being offered. Those practitioners that have been booked on the platform have told us how happy they were and how easy the process was. Based on the feedback received to date, the most challenging part is actually creating the profile from scratch, but once that’s done, the platform is pretty straightforward to use.
Right now, your platform focuses on: dietitians, psychologists and therapists, would there be further expansions for the offerings in the plan?
Currently, our focus is to offer patients sessions with Registered Dietitians, Psychologists, Professional Counselors, Marriage and Family Therapists and Clinical Social Workers. As we grow into that business, we have ideas to add additional practitioners to the platform. We’ve toyed with the idea of adding dentists to the platform, and also considered alternative medicine professionals on the platform. However for the time being, we want to focus on these specific professions.
Are there any controversies involved so far with Salubri?
The industry we are operating in is obviously a highly regulated one. It is important to note that in the end, Salubri is a software company that provides practitioners with the tools to connect efficiently with their patients. We are not a healthcare company. Many practitioners have certain limitations on their ability to practice outside of their province of residence (ie – an Ontario-based psychologist generally can not consult with an Alberta resident) and Salubri has developed tools to take this into account.
Privacy tools are made available to practitioners that will prevent patients from booking sessions with practitioners that do not reside in their province of residence. We did extensive research on the field in order to take any of these potential controversial issues into account to ensure that practitioners can comply with their profession’s regulations.
What do you do during your work time mostly before the soft-launch?
Our development and soft-launch had been carefully planned out, and the co-founders joined Salubri full time in stages. Nick left his M&A job at Deloitte Corporate Finance and began working full time with Salubri in October, 2010. Brett was next to join in January, 2011, and I joined in March after obtaining my CA designation.
During the time Nick was on board full time, his main responsibilities were to actually document a formal business plan (note – I generally would not recommend entrepreneurs do this unless they are specifically applying for government funding which was the case for us). This is an arduous and time-consuming process, but can help formalize an idea and get it on paper. His role was also to help recruit the initial health practitioners and create our advisory board.
Brett’s role when he joined full time in January was to coordinate and work directly with our two web developers and our web designer (he took on the role of project manager). He was working day and night testing each aspect of the platform that the developers coded.
I joined full time in March and my first task was to help structure the company. The initial tasks included incorporating as Salubri Inc., issuing shares to the company’s stakeholders, coordinating with our external legal counsel for the terms of use and privacy policy, setting up our merchant services and networking at startup events.
After development was finally completed, our site was transferred over to the production box to allow health practitioners to start signing up to the platform, and then we began getting them comfortable using the platform (as addressed above).
You have mentioned Salubri has little to no marketing, does the organic marketing work well?
Organic marketing (referring to search engine marketing) is an art that requires a lot of testing and dedication. The data that is made available to website companies is endless, and the key is to maximize its usefulness by understanding how to analyze the information you are presented with. Brett is in charge of most of the organic marketing. It’s extremely interesting to see how the public reacts to slight variations in our marketing techniques (for example – when using a banner ad, we’ve noticed that using a picture of an actual health practitioner results in more clicks than using a generic picture of a patient). The key to organic marketing is finding the formula for success, and this can take long to master. To date we’ve seen what’s been working and what hasn’t (by A/B testing different marketing techniques), and over the next few months as we strengthen our formula, we’ll have better data to analyze which marketing efforts work and which ones are less effective.
How was the effort of getting Salubri to be top search of Google?
Getting Salubri as a top each result in Google has been a very interesting and fun challenge. This was one of the major tasks that Brett has been working on over the past few months. He is most certainly our expert in Search Engine Optimization (SEO). However, ranking the word “Salubri” is really is just the beginning. We are actually working on getting each and every single profile of our practitioners to rank high when searched. We are also working on creating cluster-based search results. This means that when you search for say “Montreal Psychologist”, we are working on having Salubri profiles queue up in the results page. There are no black and white rules for SEO, its actually an art that takes a very long time to master (similar to search marketing). As time has progressed, we have been seen improved ranking results for many of the practitioners on our platform.
What was it like working at PwC? Did the experience there help you?
Working with PwC proved to be an extremely valuable experience for me, and the training that I’ve amassed over my three-year tenure will prove to be valuable for the rest of my life. The relationships that I’ve made (both on a business and personal level) are ones that I certainly would not have had the opportunity to make had it not been for the firm. The client exposure has also been extremely useful. Many of my clients were larger organizations, and getting a good understanding of their internal controls has been useful in helping setup Salubri from an operations standpoint. We actually have really good and scalable internal processes in place, which help keep us organized and focused. Furthermore, from a credibility standpoint, having a CA with three years of work experience from PwC has helped build the credibility of Salubri.
Do you have regrets for leaving the comfort zone of your past jobs?
Levine: I’ve been extremely fortunate to work for three-years at a Big Four accounting firm, where the experienced gained is invaluable. Furthermore, I finished my graduate degree in public accounting at McGill and got my Chartered Accounting (CA) designation in March of this year. Those credentials alone have helped me get to where I am today. There are times I consider what my life would be like had I not taken the leap of faith into the messy world of entrepreneurship. Much of starting your own business is a mind-game, and this cannot be explained properly to someone that has never been in the situation. Many days are psychological battles against one’s self, but in the end, the biggest regret one can ever have is constantly looking back and saying “what if”. . . This brings an excellent quote to mind, which I would like to share:
It is not the critic who counts, nor the man who points out how the strong man stumbled, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs and comes short again and again; who knows great enthusiasms, great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who, at the best, knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who, at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those timid souls who know neither victory nor defeat.
– Theodore Roosevelt
What about your partners?
D’urbano: Not at all. Someone once told me the most lethal drug an entrepreneur can get used to is a paycheck. So many people want to start a business, or have an idea, but they don’t get around to it. The risk of losing your income for an extended period is something a lot of people are not comfortable with. But as an entrepreneur, you have to be nimble, creative and scrappy.
Goldenberg: The certainty of a regular salary is comforting however I have no regrets leaving my job. I thoroughly enjoy the challenges of starting my own company.
How is your team mix with three people from vastly different backgrounds faring in different locations such as New York City, Toronto and Montreal?
As a matter of fact, our backgrounds are not that vastly different, all three of us graduated university with bachelors of commerce. The main differences really were the majors and concentrations. This has allowed us to split the required tasks up accordingly, as Brett focuses on the IT and development related tasks (since his major was in information systems), Nick focuses a lot on business development and financial forecasting (as his major was in finance), and I will focus on risk management and accounting (as his major was in accountancy). These three fields have proven to compliment each other very well with little overlap.
With regards to working in different cities, this does not affect our day-to-day operations. Our entire business is predicated on the fact that things can be done online. We leverage many collaboration tools, are in constant communication through text and video chat, and set out specific key performance indicators (KPI’s) at the beginning of each week in order to effectively split up the tasks at hand. In fact, Nick has found that many of the Canadian referrals that he has been given in New York are in Toronto; so having physical presence there will definitely help for relationship building. Furthermore, we have informal meetings every few days, and formal week-in-review meetings every Friday at 3pm to help ensure things are on track, and to discuss the week’s results. Lastly, at the very minimum, we have an in-person meeting once a month where we all will meet (either in Toronto, Montreal or New York) to discuss the plans for the upcoming month, and for any meetings that would review all three of us to be present.
You used the word: disruptive to describe your platform, what do you mean by it?
We see the platform as being disruptive because it is the first all-encompassing cradle-to-grave software out on the market. Traditionally, patients had to find a practitioner (be it through the yellow pages, a referral, or through an employee assistance program). Then the patient would get in touch with that practitioner, not knowing if the practitioner-patient pairing is optimized. After a session takes place, it is up to the practitioner to follow up with the patient, generally by telephone in order to continue the relationship.
The Salubri platform is the first all-encompassing platform that allows patients to have rich and meaningful relationships with their health practitioners by leveraging modern technology. From the practitioner’s perspective, the Salubri platform is an excellent patient-management tool that has a dashboard that helps organize upcoming appointments, past appointments and pending appointments. Practitioners can keep private notes on their sessions directly through the Salubri platform. The platform allows practitioners to focus on their core competency of providing quality service to their patients. Simultaneously, the platform adds many conveniences to patients (such as eliminating the need to travel to and from a practitioner’s office, and pay for sessions with credit cards).
Do you guys hire?
As of right now, we’re just commencing our “hard launch”, whereby we have opened the Salubri doors to the public to start browsing for their ideal practitioner and booking sessions. As we continue to expand across Canada and the USA, we will be hiring additional web developers and designers. As the summer progresses, we will likely look to hire our first full-time internal engineer to write code as the site continues to expand. Our permanent headquarters in Montreal is expected to be established towards the end of the summer, after which time we will likely open our doors for employment opportunities.
What are the plans for the future of Salubri?
Our future plans can be divided into both business plans and technological plans. In the future, from a technology perspective, we expect to have a fully integrated videoconferencing platform that will eliminate the third-party reliance on Skype. We also plan to add tools that help optimize the patient-practitioner pairing (will become an extremely useful tool as the number of practitioners on the platform increases). The homepage will be completely redesigned to be more functional, where patients can browse for the ideal practitioner directly from the home page. More robust scheduling tools for practitioners will be added that will allow them to synchronize their Salubri calendar with their personal calendars to have more accurate availabilities listed on their profile.
Other business ideas in the pipeline include potential group sessions (where one health practitioner can offer an online sessions to many patients simultaneously), have a more dynamic patient screening questionnaire (to help with the practitioner pairing), gamification (ie – badges, etc.) to reward patients for improving health and meeting goals, and separate blogging tools to allow practitioners to have their own Salubri blog page.
Tsz Wai Derek Lee is a business student at the University of Western Ontario.
