In The Thick of It

You got to put more into the pot than you take out.

You got to contribute more, and I got to be

able to, and I want to contribute more so that

should you ever have an off day, you're allowed to.

I got you covered.

And I need you to contribute more to the pot so that

if I ever have an off day, you got me covered.

And if we all have that mindset, then there will

always be an abundance to take care of other people

take it welcome to In the Thick of It.

I'm your host, Scott Hollrah.

In this episode of in the Thick of

it, I have a fascinating conversation with Chris

Mathew, chief growth officer of Sniffle.

An aipowered telehealth platform, Chris shares

his long, winding road to entrepreneurship

and eventual success with Sniffle.

From early failures to finding the right product market

fit, Chris offers an inside glimpse into the constant

learning and resilience required of startup founders.

He also discusses Sniffle's mission to transform

healthcare by using technology to improve doctor

patient relationships, as well as some key

features that set their platform apart.

Keep listening for hard won lessons on perseverance

from Chris' journey of repeated setbacks and triumphs

in building a healthcare tech company.

Welcome to another episode of In the Thick of it.

I'm very excited to have Chris Mathew,

chief growth officer with Sniffle here.

Chris, thanks so much for coming in the studio today.

Thrilled to be here. Thanks for having me.

So we've actually got a number of mutual

connections and funny how we got connected.

Not all that long reconnected, I should say.

Not all that long ago.

We actually worked together someplace a long time

ago, so it's amazing how paths cross.

Anyway, so good to reconnect and good to have you here.

It's fantastic to reconnect with you too.

It never ceases to amaze me how huge and

small the world can be at the same time.

Without a doubt.

Let's start with this. Where'd you grow up?

I was born in Dallas.

My parents are immigrants from South India, so my

brothers and I are first generation born here, born

in Dallas, and then my parents moved us to

Plano, chasing the great education system.

And so I grew up in Plano from third grade on, and my

mom still lives in the same house that we grew up in.

Had a great childhood.

I feel fortunate that I had the opportunity to travel

as much as I did, especially back to India.

My mom was born and raised in Malaysia, but her parents

were south Indians, so I had lots of family in India.

Still have a majority of my family

in India and then family in Malaysia.

So being able to, as a young person, travel

internationally and see things in India and see things

in Malaysia and then come back here, realized just

what a lottery winner of life.

My family and I were gifted with my parents

making the sacrifices they did for us, no doubt.

So being that you're first generation born here

and your parents came from Southeast Asia, what

was your house like growing up?

Was it a more traditional indian type upbringing or

was it a more american upbringing or was it

kind of a mesh of the two?

Yeah, it was 1ft in two boats.

It was a dual thing.

We were very involved in the indian community, which it's

not like it is now here throughout the US, but

especially here in north Texas, there were definitely indian families,

but 50 years ago, it wasn't quite like this.

So there was a very strong connection in our culture.

And I'm sure lots of people do

this too, but everyone is your aunt

or uncle, everyone's auntie and everyone's uncle.

So as a kid, I just grew know.

I knew they weren't technically my aunt and uncles,

but I had thousands of aunts and uncles.

So we were very involved in the indian community.

And our church, St Mary's indian church,

was a big part of our lives.

But my dad was a huge sports fan.

My brothers and I were very involved in

sports, so that brought us in both worlds.

And so my parents wanted us to absolutely

assimilate and be aware and take every advantage

we could growing up in Plano.

But then we went back to India for lots of summers.

I mean, I probably have traveled back to see my family

20 times in my life, which doesn't sound like a whole

lot, but when you go for a month or six weeks

at a time, it's a pretty significant amount of time, considering

the journey that it takes to get there.

It's not the sort of thing that you

can just go do every other month. No.

Although the shortest time I've been

in India is three days.

That's not enough to get over the jet lag.

The reality is I wasn't jet lag

by the time I came back.

It was like I just traveled around the

world fast enough that my body didn't really

adjust to anything one way or the other.

I went back for my grandfather's funeral, landed, was there for

a few days, got on a plane and came back.

And it was a strange feeling to not be exhausted

because I just fell right back into my routine.

Imagine for something like that, too, there's a

lot of adrenaline and just keeps you going?

Yeah, for sure.

You mentioned sports.

Were you an athlete as a kid? Not really.

Not a good athlete.

Played football and played baseball, but I grew

just under six inches and lost to 70

pounds my senior year of high school.

So I was short and round, and then

I just got tired of being everyone.

Different motivations that I don't necessarily need to

get into here, but it's like, hey, I'm

going to do something about this.

And then I suddenly just started

becoming obsessed with going workout.

And then I somehow grew, and it's very strange.

My brother's not.

We're all six foot and above.

I'm the tallest of all of them.

That's officially on the record.

I'm the tallest documented here. Thank you.

Scott is the witness.

So I went through that growth spur, but it was

after high school and in college, I loved playing rec

ball and stuff like that, but that was it.

What kind of student were you?

Not a great student.

So, Scott, I'm all about relationships, and I have been

from really early on in my life, and I don't

know exactly where that got instilled, but I love people.

I've always loved people.

I've always loved connecting with people.

So my focus was being involved at a m.

And I was involved in lots of. Right.

I was all over student government

stuff, all over different organizations.

And schoolwork wasn't really my priority, but

building relationships with my professors was.

So on that first day of every class,

when you got the syllabus and they actually,

hey, my office hours are this.

That's what I wrote down.

And then I would go and

I would visit during office hours.

Forget the book list.

Forget the test dates. Yeah.

Do you have questions about the curriculum?

Not really, professor. Just curious.

Like, how'd you get into this?

Why, of all the places you

could be teaching, why college station?

How'd you pick this path?

And I learned incredible things.

And some people had really great stories,

and other people's stories were really mundane.

They were just like, I don't know.

I honestly don't know how I got here.

But I learned from some of those things.

Like, okay, I want to be a little more intentional.

I don't want to just have things happen to me.

I want to try to pursue things.

But I did that for a long time.

I will tell you that.

A budy of mine and I decided to skip finals one year.

Always a great idea.

Just felt like I could do it.

I had a few classes that I

knew that the professors were going to.

I turned in papers early and it was fine.

But I had a couple of professors that I

visited often, and one, I was like, I have

an opportunity to have a life enriching experience.

I just want your opinion on what should I do.

They're like, well, what is it?

Well, I have tickets to jazz fest in New Orleans.

In New Orleans.

And they're like, so you're going to skip

finals to go to a jazz fest?

Yeah, but I've never been to New Orleans either.

And it's an international melting pot and there's people

from all around the world and the food and

the way to really learn about that.

And jazz is a part of american history.

So what do you think?

I think that you should probably experience that.

I was like, okay, I think you're right.

And I still remember the first.

I did this two years in a row.

I went to Jaspers twice using this same

process, but never been to New Orleans.

The second time, no, the second time I had gone

and I recapped the life enriching experience I had had.

So we weren't embellishing that you needed.

It was, you know, the second year.

Know, it's like, hey, I want your blessing.

To skip finals and go to jazz fest was.

Here's what I would have done differently.

Here's what I would have liked to have tried

to experience and pursue and learn more about.

You should do that.

When you come back, I want to hear all about it.

You got it.

And they just give you a zero for

the final or they just didn't calculate it.

Again, I wasn't here for a 40, and they knew that.

I'm not asking for an a right now.

I might have a b, maybe less than that, but

I'm cool with that if you're cool with that.

I'm not planning on being an accountant.

I'm not planning on being in finance.

Sure would love this opportunity, man.

If you're telling me you got to

skip the finals in accounting and finance. Oh, my gosh.

Managerial and financial accounting.

Passing those two classes with C's, mind you, I was not

a 40 student either, but I took it very seriously.

Those classes kicked my tail.

Passing those two classes with a c were

among the top ten happiest days of my

life, and you got to just skip out.

I applaud you.

I applaud you.

I knew enough to know that the worst that

would happen is you're going to give me a

failing grade, which is not the right thing for

the oldest immigrant parents who sacrificed everything to come

here and pursue this american dream.

And I'm somewhat thumbing my nose at

it by not taking it as seriously.

But my skill set was never going

to be in being a physician.

It was never going to be in being a really technical.

That's not who I am.

When I was in 6th grade, I

would go to the Albertson's grocery store.

I'd buy candy for $0.10.

I'd sell it for a quarter at school, or

five for a dollar, because everyone loved a bonus.

And slinging candy was my thing.

Sales and marketing from day one. From day one.

And so that was always.

And my family back in India, they're

all entrepreneurs, they're all business people.

So my dad was like, please, just

go get a big corporate job.

It's part of why I joined when we worked together.

Go work for a big outfit.

Go just get a job and be an employee somewhere.

And I did that, and it just didn't feel right.

It's just not the right fit for me.

So of all the startups that I had had a lot

of crash and burns, and my dad constantly was like, this

is not why we came here for you to tinker.

But I'd like to believe that he'd be really

proud of the path where it's led me.

We'll get to where it's led you in a bit.

Going back to your grades, and you knew what you

were cut out for and what you weren't cut out

for early on, and that's a great thing.

A while back, I was in a parking lot,

and there was a Ferrari parked in the lot,

and the license plate said 2.0 gpA.

And maybe the guy's initials were GPA, and

maybe this was the second Ferrari he's had.

But my interpretation of that was, guess what?

I'm driving a Ferrari, and I had a 2.0 GPa in school.

If I can do it, you can too.

I do think that there is a tremendous value

in education, but I think it's more about what

you can do than what the transcript says.

I 100% agree, and I really think this is important.

I'm not here to dismiss education.

I think education is really important.

I was a good student in high school, but I focused.

Did you have deca in high school? That rings a bell.

But it was a marketing club, a marketing organization.

I won state championship in Texas two years

in a row my junior and sophomore year.

I loved the things that I loved.

I got really into.

I won an outstanding chemistry student of the entire Plano

ISD my sophomore year of high school, but I loved

my teacher, had a really strong connection with her, and

she found a way to make chemistry something more than

what I thought it was possible.

So there are things that I really got into,

but there are other things that I just didn't.

I do think a well

rounded education is really important.

I definitely want my boys to be able

to have a rich education, but I think

that it's not just textbooks and test.

There's lots of different ways to learn in

the world, and I'm here for that.

Did you know early on what you wanted to be? No.

Did your parents have mean, you talked about your

dad saying, go get a big corporate job. Yeah.

Expectations were to hopefully join a big corporate

America and climb the ranks and get the

gold watch and get the stability.

That's a big thing coming from where they

came from to the life we were living.

My dad worked a job that he

didn't love, but he did for us.

My mom worked a job that was really hard and she

excelled at it, but they did that to provide for us.

So it was like, what we want for all of our kids

is to go further than what we've done right for them.

It's a pretty monumental step to come from where

they came from to the life we were living

in Plano, Texas, which is pretty significant.

Go get a corporate job and find that stability and enjoy

that cushion of a company that gives you a 401.

Those are things like, forget about a

startup, they don't match your 401K. In a startup.

I'm like, well, yeah, they don't pay you

anything in a startup unless you make money.

So there weren't expectations.

It was just, I got into healthcare recruiting.

The story behind a lot of healthcare recruiting agencies is two

people rise to the top and they turn their guns and

say, hey, we're going to go start our own gang.

And that just happens every single time.

And unfortunately, everyone sues everyone, as opposed to

just saying like, okay, go start your own.

And we did that.

So sure, we understand that you're going to go do that.

And they sued us.

And I always hoped that people would

break that cycle, but they didn't.

But I worked for a physician staffing agency,

and you were there for quite a while.

The first agency, I was there for 18

months, and then two senior vice presidents said,

we're leaving to start our own.

Who's coming with me?

And they called and recruited me and I was like, I'm in.

Jerry Maguire moment.

Yeah, I'm in.

Like, I'm here for the gamble.

Let's risk it.

I had a very high risk tolerance

because back then it was just me.

I had a truck, I had me.

I had everything I really needed for my life.

I could fit in the back of my

car, and that was all I needed.

So I moved to Oklahoma.

We had a series of startups that crashed and burned.

I moved to Wichita, tried one more.

Crashed and burned.

Did not have a favorable experience in Wichita.

I've shared this before.

I moved into my apartment complex. Scott.

I think it was two days later, the worst

ice storm that had hit Wichita in two decades. Hit.

I'm from, right, genetically, I'm from South India, so I'm

not here for any of this ice storm action.

And I don't know how to drive in

the ice, so I'm just like, okay, well,

I'll just be hunkered down in my apartment.

A day after the ice storm

hits, the entire complex loses power.

So I pack a bag and I walk a

couple miles to a Howard Johnson, a hojo.

Those don't exist anymore.

I don't think I stay in a hojo for three days.

There's a sonic nearby.

I'm eating sonic two to three times a day and just

questioning my entire existence of, like, what did I do?

Karma.

How did I offend you so bad

to be in this situation right now?

At any point, were you thinking, maybe

I should have listened to my dad?

I was pretty stubborn back then that I was.

No, no, partially, probably.

Like, I will prove him, to him and to

them that I'm going to make this work.

I didn't make that work again.

I lasted in Wichita about six months.

Just wasn't the right fit for me.

Came back here and you're single at this time. Single.

And so can risk anything I need to for me.

And you're mid to late twenty s at this point, mid 20s.

Come back here.

I'm living in plano. Only place I can afford

office space is downtown Salina.

So I'm driving to downtown Salina,

working on the town square.

Had two more startup ideas.

They didn't pan out. Crashed and burned.

And then that's when we worked together at Mis group.

I was there for a little while, realized

this isn't the right fit for me. I can't contribute.

One of the things that matters to me

is I want to be a contributor.

I don't want things just passed around.

I want to be able to earn this.

I want to something that we talk about a lot.

Sniffle and valiant. Digital.

You got to put more into the pot than you take out.

You got to contribute more, and I want

to contribute more, so that should you ever

have an off day, you're allowed to.

I got you covered.

And I need you to contribute more to the pot so that

if I ever have an off day, you got me covered.

And if we all have that mindset, then there will

always be an abundance to take care of other people.

And so being a contributor is a big thing for me.

I want to make an impact that fuels me in a big way.

Those entities didn't work out.

Just wasn't the right fit.

My former business partner called and

said, I got some funding.

Let's try this one more time.

Remember this idea that we came up with?

And I was like, yeah, I do.

Is the funding real? Yes, it is.

Okay, let's give it a go.

And I came aboard to that organization.

It was four of us, we grew it to just under 50.

The original folks that were involved

all left to pursue other things.

But I stayed there and helped to lead the

organization for about 13 years and loved it. Loved it.

I found my lane and it was great.

Was that inline? Yeah.

So you took on the COO role there at some point? I did.

Knowing your personality though, like operations,

that just doesn't seem like you.

It's not, but it's a skill set to learn.

What I love doing is engaging people.

I love talking with people, I love learning what your

problems are and then figuring out the solutions that we

might be able to apply to them and how to

get you there faster, that juices me up.

But learning other elements of the business, front

of house, back of house, working with our

it team, making sure the development and everything

was all in sync, and recognizing all of

the businesses interdependent on each other.

And we've all got to have trust and collaboration and

connection for all of those things to come together.

And it was a really great learning experience.

The owners of the company, unfortunately,

we fell out of alignment.

I'm grateful for the time that we had there, because

we did a lot, we achieved a lot in an

industry that had what I believe is a stained reputation.

We did a really good job, and I'm proud of the

work that we did, and I'm really thankful for a lot

of the great people I got to work with and work

alongside and to help lead along the way.

And it was phenomenal. I think you said you were

there for twelve years, right? 1313. Okay.

I think back to those early positions where it

was startup after startup, and it didn't work.

It didn't work.

It didn't work.

What was the big difference there

that made that one work?

People, the initial group of, in this case, this

initial group of guys that were there, we had

this kind of band of brothers mentality.

And if you were going to stick around

till 09:00 on a Thursday night, I'm sticking

around till 09:00 on a Thursday night.

If you've got something that's really pressing, well, your issue

just became my issue and let's go solve this.

And that mindset just was really exhilarating for us.

Also.

We were applying a new solution

to a very commoditized industry.

And a lot of people that were

like, that's never going to work.

That's never going to happen.

Oh, okay, great. You've got that.

I'll show you mentality.

I do have that.

My children have some of that, too.

So I'm sorry to say I passed some of that down to them.

But I think it's okay.

Like, in balance, it can be

a really strong fuel source.

This was really good.

We were prepared.

We had a really strong work ethic.

And then we were lucky.

I mean, there's some luck factor

that comes into this, too.

I remember one of the things that I used to teach

and got coached but then would teach people as well is

in the beginning of my career, I was a phone jockey.

So it was just you're smiling and dialing.

If the minimum was 100 calls, I'm making 150.

Because that's how it's going to be and that's what

has to be done to be able to get ahead. Cool.

Whether it's your 10th call or your 100th call,

it deserves the same level of energy and enthusiasm

and professionalism because you have no idea who's going

to about to pick up the phone.

And there'd be so many people that once

they get to that 80th call, they're like,

hey, Scott, how are you doing?

Just reaching out.

Don't reach out to me.

I don't know who you are. Random person. Right.

And that energy comes through the phone.

And so one of the things I

feel fortunate is hardwired in me.

I've got an incredible amount of enthusiasm and

excitement about things that I get passionate about.

And I can tap into that pretty much in a never

ending source that allows me to really fuel me forward.

And we had that and I got to do that.

And so when I was making those

calls and people were interested and curious,

that was like, that's my open window.

Because if you're curious, then we

can have an open conversation.

And that was something I think that I was

able to really establish for myself during that time

frame that, not that I wasn't enthusiastic and excited

and curious about my other solutions, but the other

solutions were just repackaging of the same solutions that

were already in the marketplace at inline.

What they did during that time was a

revolutionary new approach, a completely different approach to

physician staffing and healthcare staffing, which made it

really easy for me to want to get

behind and lean in on something.

I need to get this into every

interview, but I'm thinking about your story.

Do you consider yourself a patient person?

And here's why I ask.

I think that a lot of entrepreneurs and you

talked about being a risk taker, a lot of

risk takers, I think they want to go.

They're not very patient.

But I also hear your story, and even as we

kind of prepped for this, just kind of knowing your

long term outlook, you seem like a very patient person.

Where would you put yourself on that spectrum?

Being a father definitely builds lots of patience.

What I would say is that what I have, maybe more

than patience, is I have a lot of resilience that is

definitely connected to my ability to be patient is to know,

okay, that didn't work, we'll try the next one.

That didn't work, we'll try the next one.

And to be able to, what I was saying earlier,

every swing that you take deserves your full commitment.

Don't go up there and just do a half

swing, because then what are you trying to do?

So if you're going to give your full swing on every

at bat, well then you just have to be resilient.

And with that, you kind of have to be patient

because you don't know when the right pitch is coming.

And I guess, yeah, I'm a pretty patient person.

Sometimes that doesn't always translate, right?

There's a lot of times where I want things

to move faster, I need things to move faster,

but I can't control lots of things.

What I can't control is my attitude, my mindset, the

energy I bring to the table, to the room.

And those things I do try to, I

think, balance with a good amount of patience.

What did you go on to do after?

In line.

So I went radical different way.

I went and joined a

40,000 person global insurance company.

Total opposite pendulum swing.

50 employees to 40,000. Yeah.

Global carrier.

So my childhood best friend worked

at sun life, phenomenal organization.

They're in the ancillary employee benefit, space,

life, disability, dental, vision, things like that.

And for ten years, he'd been saying, like, this

is a gem of an industry, and if you

could bring your thinking pattern and your resilience to

this role, this could be a lot of fun.

So I went and had a conversation

with his boss, and eventually my boss.

My first conversation, Scott, with him.

My first interview, it was 4 hours. Wow. Yeah.

But it didn't feel like it.

It felt like a 45 minutes conversation.

I was so interested and so intrigued and

hearing him talk about all the problems and

all the issues and all the challenges, and

I was like, problem, problem, opportunity.

And was just really curious.

My second interview with him was three plus hours after that,

I was like, okay, at this point, man, you know me

almost as well as my wife and my best friend now.

So I met with his boss.

He flew in town from California, and he's like,

I've heard about these epic interviews of yours.

This isn't going to be like that.

I'm like, cool.

Two and a half hours later, I'm like,

what is it about you all that?

I ask questions and they just start going.

But it was really great for me to hear this consistent.

There needs to be a new solution

mindset that is applied to employee benefits.

And my director was fully on board with saying, I'll

back you if you want to go out there and

do this a different way, if you want to approach

this a different way, I'll back you.

So I'm like, okay, let's go

pick a fight with the industry.

Let's go change employee benefits.

I'll show you that.

Yes, we can.

And the childhood dream is I get to

work with my best friends in 6th grade

and actually partner on projects together.

And we're working professionally,

and it was phenomenal.

And Sunlife was an amazing employer for a huge

organization for their ability to still reach out and

give an employee the feeling of a personal touch.

I'd never experienced anything like that.

I joined September of 2019.

I was in a training program

until February 2020, which was incredible.

I was just like, how you guys are really

giving me this much time to study and to

learn, which was so empowering, again, from my previous

days of not being a great student, being able

to say, like, be the subject matter expert.

I learned over time.

I've learned you need to own all of it if

you're going to go out there and sell it.

So learning that process and benefits is complicated.

It's more complicated than a lot of people think.

So I finished training.

I think it was third week of

February, and they're like, okay, you're released.

Get out there.

I'm going to go change the world.

And then on March twelveth, they sent an email and

said, go home and don't ever leave your house.

Starting in a brand new industry, Scott, knowing

no one, having zero relational currency, and the

whole world just shifted to zoom meetings.

It was really a difficult year.

I imagine so.

And you seem like the kind of person who doesn't do

well sitting still in your house with the door shut.

You seem like you need to get out and get face to face.

That relational aspect.

How did you fight through that?

You have to adapt.

So, first of all, yes, you're right.

I'm an extrovert in every sense of the word.

At the end of a long day,

I want to be surrounded by people.

After I've used all my words, that's how I go recharge.

So that was a real challenge.

And I'd never worked from home before.

I'd always had an office, but

with it came some real advantages.

I used to say, as opposed to hitting the tollway, I'd

hit the hallway, and then I'd be at my office.

And so right down the hallways,

I'd never had a home office.

I set one up.

I closed the door.

I was able to create that barrier.

When the door closes, a switch takes place.

And I'm now in Chris work mode and would do these

things, but it's also really nice to be at home.

And if the boys needed anything, they could come in

there, and I had a standing desk, and they'd be

on the floor coloring or reading a book.

And it's like, this is kind of cool that I get

to do both of these things at the same time.

And early on, you remember everyone had grace for this

whole new thing that we were all trying to figure

out how to adjust to trying to be.

My oldest boy was doing kindergarten at home.

That was really challenging for lots of reasons, for him,

for me, my wife, for how we unfortunately kind of

neglected our youngest, because, like, okay, we got to get

him somehow engaged in an iPad to learn kindergarten.

And I need to get on a call

and, hey, young one, here's a toy.

Just sit in the corner and entertain yourself.

I mean, we did the best we can, but I

adapted to it, and I think there was a lot

of good stuff that came out of it.

I do go back and do I go into an office now every day.

I prefer that.

I love that.

Obviously, we've gotten through the pandemic.

And the boys are much older and

don't need me there all the time.

But I really do appreciate the flexibility of both.

And I understand why some people really

love to work at home now.

When I first started working from home, probably, I

don't know, twelve years ago, I remember thinking, I

never want to go back into an office, ever.

And at the time we only had one kid.

And as we had more kids, we have three kids now.

Working from home, it just became harder and harder.

And there were distractions.

It wasn't like, I need to go, I'm

going to go binge Netflix instead of working.

It was like the kids are

fighting over something or whatever.

And when we got our business off the ground and

started hiring and moved out of the house, I can

remember driving home from my very first day in our

first office, and I just felt this sense of relief.

And for me, I have a

really hard time shutting down mentally.

Even if I'm not at the office, even if

I'm not in front of the computer, I have

a really hard time shutting down mentally.

And I realized that I needed a

physical separation between work and home.

And so I'm with you on enjoying being in the office.

Yeah, I love being in the office.

I like the drive to work.

It gives me a chance to listen to whether it's

going to be my playlist or a book or a

podcast that I'm enjoying that prepares me for the day

I'm about to walk into my drive home.

I can either take care of a few calls.

I try to do a thing where people that I've

loved in my life, I try to check in on

once a week to reach out to someone I haven't

talked to in a long time, just to see how

they're doing and learn what's going on in their world.

But that separation is really helpful to transition.

As I come back home now, on the flip side, I

will say there were some really cool things that happened, and

I'm sure you experienced it too by being at home.

Like, for example, seeing my youngest who had training

wheels on his bike, and he came into my

office, he's like, hey, take the training wheels off.

I'm like, I don't have time to teach you how

to ride a bike right now, but we will.

And then I'm on a call with my boss.

I'm looking out the front window, and there is

my boy riding a bicycle without training wheels immediately.

And so I'm like, I have to get off this phone call.

I don't know what's happening right now? I ran outside.

My wife took the training wheels off,

and I'm like, what are you doing?

He said, trust him.

And we had one of those balance bikes, so

he understood the balance part of it, and so

I just jumped on the bike and started riding.

And it was so cool to see him feel like, I'm flying.

He's a superhero at this point.

I'm so happy that I got to be there to see that.

And those were definitely some of the gems of, when you're

able to be at home, there are things that you could

easily miss, and that is a memory I have locked.

His face, his confidence.

Trust me, I can do this. Okay. I believe you. You can?

That's awesome.

That's something you'll never forget. Totally.

That's a story you'll tell at his wedding. Yeah.

That's awesome.

I want to go back to something you said about sunlife.

You said, 40,000 people global, and yet they made it.

I don't think you use the word personal,

but you didn't feel like a number.

You didn't feel like you were

lost in this massive, massive organization.

What did they do that created that feeling?

Before the pandemic, when there used to

be in person meetings, they bring all

the salespeople to a dual headquartered company.

Boston and Kansas City, we come together, and Kansas City was

where I went and put everyone up for three days.

And you have a great time, but you're learning a lot.

That investment on that scale.

I'd never seen anything like that again.

But my scale was skewed because I'd

only been a part of small startups.

But seeing what you're bringing, 200 people from across the

country, you're putting them up at a nice hotel.

We have content being consumed all day

long, and then incredible activities and interactions

and collaboration and fellowship every evening.

Wow, what an investment in your people so that

they can come together and really feel like they're

a part of a team and a unit.

And here are another 199 people that know exactly

what you're going through and how hard this is.

In the employee benefits world, you

are the best of the best.

If you have a 94% losing ratio, you are the top, the

tip of the spear if you win 6% of the time.

So if a baseball player hits six out

of 100 pitches or at bats, that's right. Wow.

They're hall of Fame in the employee benefit space.

That's how challenging the industry was.

I was the mayor of Loserville.

I had a three to 4% closing rate.

Super frustrating, but an amazing situation to be together with the

only other 199 people that knew exactly what that feels like

and then could be a fuel source for one another to

say, okay, how do we get past this?

How do we overcome?

How do we adapt?

What can we do to approach this differently?

And there were a lot of the really successful

guys that would be willing to share those things.

And I'm not above doing anything in a role.

I'm not above learning from anyone.

And so if my genuine curiosity to learn from people,

I was fortunate that people would say, okay, yeah, I'll

take you under my wing and I'll share with you

how I do what I do and how I got

to 5% of a closing ratio, which still is.

I know it sounds crazy, but if you can have

the endurance and the tolerance for pain and suffering in

that industry, you can do really well financially, which is

the only reason why anyone is in that industry, because

the hazard pay is that extreme.

So I did that for three and a half years.

Ultimately, once I realized I can't change this industry,

I would bring what I'm biased, obviously, I would

bring solutions to some broker partners that would be

a better benefit for the employees, would save the

employer a significant amount of money and put them

in the position of being the authority of, look

at what I just brought you.

You can be the hero.

You're going to be the hero.

The broker, my client.

That's a triple win.

And more times than not, I'd have

people say, good idea, burn it.

Don't ever let me see that again.

What are you talking about?

This is a triple win.

We just did something incredibly powerful

for the employer and the employees.

Yeah, but I'm going to take

a huge hit on my commission.

If I give them a cheaper solution, then

my 20% of that cheaper solution is less

money for me not going to work.

And ultimately, I think you definitely

know this about me now.

I'm just not a transactional person.

I don't want to be in a transactional world

to the best that I can control that.

And so ultimately, when I realized it's just not the right

fit and it's time for me to make a change.

As much as Sunlife was able to make it

personal with things like that, and through a lot

of the response of the Black Lives Matter movements

that were taking place and the DEI initiatives, it

was great to see a huge organization trying to

do something proactive, to bring people together, to have

difficult conversations, to do things to say.

How do we address this how do we

make an impact in our local community?

I applauded that Sunlife sponsored me to get

into a McKinsey program, which is really amazing,

and to learn from people at that level.

Again, my a m stories don't sound like

I love to learn, but I do, especially

when I learn from people that are really

brilliant and passionate about what they're doing.

And I can see where it could be applicable

in this world that I live in now.

So Sunlife did lots of those things.

And then just along the way, like little things of

surprise and delight to get something in the mail that

seems silly, but like a new pullover, a new backpack,

a new grilling toolkit, right out of the blue with

just saying thanks for everything you do.

Those little things was just for me.

I'd not experienced that.

Especially when you think about, it

wasn't some hand me down backpack.

When you send out top of the line, north

face backpacks to how many thousands of people across

the country, it's not a small investment.

It's not a small investment, but it demonstrates where you

put your priorities, which I continue to be impressed by

sun Life and will always remember those days fondly for

lots of reasons, but also taught me a lot.

It also positioned me perfectly for this new role that

I'm in and what I'm doing now at sniffle.

For those who don't know, can you

just talk a little bit about McKinsey?

Yeah, it's.

I don't know if you could say top three, top four.

Definitely top five.

Consulting firm in the world. In the world.

And these are high level consultants?

These are high level thinkers.

They go and they get to recruit

the top 1% of the top 1%. Right.

So at a and m, the

fellows program at the business school.

Were you in the fellows program? I was. Were you?

I was not. Come on.

I didn't pay enough attention to that.

They bill that as the top 1%.

I was definitely not the top 1%.

That was a very subjective 1%. Okay.

But did Mackenzie come on campus to do recruiting?

McKenzie, Bain, BCG, Boston Consulting Group.

Yeah, they all came on and they're looking to

cherry pick the very best of the best.

And then those people get put into hyper

acceleration learning studios and modules and situations to

fast track their ability to synthesize challenges and

problems and look for solutions.

It was a three month program, but I left

sun life about six weeks into the McKinsey program.

My brilliant wife was just ultimately, like, at

the end of this, it's still going to

be a transactional world that you work in.

So your wife actually encouraged you to make a change?

Yeah. All right.

One of the things I was thinking about a minute ago,

you came into this with so much energy and enthusiasm, and

we'll take on the world and I'll show you.

You don't like to take. No.

You don't do defeat.

Well, did you feel defeated? Oh, yeah.

I mean, I will tell you something.

I try to practice radical transparency.

There were times where I was personally hurt.

I put everything into trying to change this transactional

mindset, trying to show up for people in a

really meaningful way and to go big for people.

And for it not to work was

really painful, I'll tell you, Scott.

So part of my territory was Oklahoma City.

On not one occasion, but on two occasions,

I had meetings booked in Oklahoma City where

people canceled on me, knowing that I'm driving

from Dallas to have this meeting.

And they're like, something came up.

I get life happens.

But the something that came up was like, I got

a golf, I got in on a tea time.

Hit me up the next time you're here.

And that is something that was like,

for somebody who's very relationship driven. Yeah.

There's another transaction shoved in your face.

That's right.

And so those things were, they would

frustrate me, but the hurt would come.

Okay, finally, we're going to work on a case.

I put maybe 30 hours of work into

analyzing the data on this one case.

We have sharpened an incredible solution.

I've gotten all of the universe

aligned to make this happen.

And then when it comes down to it, the broker just.

I forgot to present it to the client.

We'll just keep it as is this

year, but next year, you're my guy.

And those things would just be really frustrating.

And I would leave my office, and I would be defeated,

and my wife could see that, and I could feel that.

And I vented a lot openly with my best friend.

And being able to say, how do you deal with this?

And the way you just push it down. You push it down.

You push it down.

But ultimately, it's only so long you can do that.

There's only so long I can do that.

If your wife hadn't encouraged you to leave,

would you still be doing that today?

So here's the tricky part.

No, I would have been there longer than when I left.

I would have stayed to learn

more from that McKinsey opportunity.

Then at the time that that would have ended,

bonus day would have only been a month away.

You're not going to leave right before bonus

day, and then at that point, you're already

four or five months into the new year.

And so that cycle just continues.

So for me, it was the right time to wish my team the

very best, be grateful for all that I learned, and again, use that

to be able to really bring me to where I am.

And let's go there.

How did Sniffle come about?

So, Rich Blanton is our CEO and my business partner.

He got into telemedicine in 2011.

So he's been around this for a long time.

Rich has got a rich business background.

He's had five startups, five exits,

one company he took public.

So he's seen the movie before.

So it's really actually exhilarating for me to

be able to sit shotgun and watch and

learn from a person that's done on that

level who was just paying attention to telehealth.

Tried to make a bid to buy a

meridoc, lost out to Teladoc on that, but

just stayed vigilant in observing and learning and

understanding the good, the bad, and the challenging.

And then in 2017, end of 17,

he and another business partner started sniffle

started getting the tech all built out.

Knew that using AI was going to be a part

of this, going to be a huge differentiator back then.

Still is a pretty big differentiator today, but it's

definitely very much in the known universe now.

Everyone knows we're all looking

for solutions around AI.

I've got to imagine you guys are.

Yeah, absolutely deep in that.

But if they were in 2017, if they

had the foresight to make investments in that,

then people generally knew what AI was.

It was kind of talked about more.

So in probably a scary sense. Terminator. Exactly.

But that was pretty.

I mean, they were kind of a pioneer.

I would say if they were investing in it that

early, they knew how to stitch together the right solution.

So the architecture that the sniffle platform

is built on is service oriented architecture.

So it's not always about having

to build everything from scratch.

It's about what can you integrate

with, what can you bolt on.

You know this very well.

And so 2017 started the company

started going down a path.

Pandemic hits refactor and decide to

use for high scale COVID testing.

Business was going a different direction, had the

wrong person in the wrong seat on the

bus, that CTO was not the right person.

Insisted that everything had to be built from scratch,

as opposed to going and buying an existing telehealth

platform and soing on top of it.

This gentleman was like, no, I'm

going to build everything from scratch. This.

Honestly, rich can laugh about this, and this is

definitely the red flag, is I can get the

whole thing built in nine months for 150 grand. Okay.

You and I both know it's like,

what is this person talking about?

You cannot build from scratch this complex

of a system, all the hip.

Like, even just that, when I think about

the compliance aspects alone, that's probably well over

that amount of time and money. Absolutely.

Going through and getting your sock two

compliance certification, that's a $50,000 process that

takes multiple months on its own minimum.

So anyhow, it wasn't the right time.

So rich stepped into the CEO

role, started driving this process.

I had met Rich two years prior before

I came aboard through a mutual business contact.

And once he explained the business model of

sniffle, I immediately recognized that's a winner.

Congratulations.

Like, you're going to disrupt telehealth. Phenomenal.

And we just stayed in touch.

And I was an admirer of what he's done in business

and was hoping to be able to lean on him as

a mentor to learn from him in other aspects.

When I decided to make the separation from son, I called

Rich and said, hey, I'm about to update my resume.

I'd love any introductions you may know, anything that

you think I could be a good fit for.

I'd love for the connection.

He was like, don't update your resume.

I'm ready for you now.

Come join me. Great.

So my last day at sun was November 30,

and my first day at Sniffle was December 1.

And at that point, the organization was

going through a pretty significant transformation.

A very significant.

So the previous CEO had stepped out,

still involved with the business, but is

doing another venture out on his own.

There was a UIux team that we had.

So sniffle owned a marketing agency for a period of

time to help get all of the UIux talent.

So that team was there.

But for the first six, seven months, it was

just two guys in a coffee pot ideating on,

how do we bring this to market?

What is the differentiator?

How do we overcome this?

Why is an employer group going to benefit this?

How do we make this better for a physician?

So that she can really find joy in her practice

again every day, just the two of us grinding away,

and then finally got to the point where it was

time to start adding people to our team.

We always had a development

team based in Latin America.

At one point, it was a 14 person development team.

Now it's an eight person development

team solely dedicated to us.

And then we started adding internal teammates

to join us on our adventure.

And now there's rich, myself, four other folks

that are on this mission with us, and

then our eight person development team.

So maybe explain and elaborate a little bit

more on what does sniffle look like today.

So sniffle is an AI driven virtual care platform.

What we stand for is for

better care in a bigger picture.

So when I say better care, it's approaching

and using AI and virtual care to give

better care for physicians, clinicians, and patients.

The idea of being a doctor isn't

what it looks like on tv.

Everyone's heard physician burnout.

It's a real thing.

The amount of people that are choosing to

leave medicine or not pursue medicine is alarming.

And selfishly, my wife for getting involved in this is the way

that I lost my dad, but also the fact that I'm going

to need health care for my mom down the line.

And I know I'm going to need health care because I've

got a family medical history of things and I need health

care to be around for my boys and my wife.

And so if we don't help to navigate real changes,

positive changes in the healthcare system, which is incredibly flawed

and broken right now, we're going to continue to run

more and more providers out of the workforce, and then

we're all going to be stuck looking at each other

saying, how do we let this happen?

And so sniffle is focused on how can we

bring better care for a physician and that patient?

And the bigger picture is about reinforcing the bond

between a physician and her patients, about how do

we really emphasize that continuity of care and relationship

between two people is critically important.

I'm a relationship guy.

This is a big thing for me.

That you go and see your doctor is

an important thing, part of your healthcare journey.

Telehealth previously random patients seeing random providers,

it's not good for patients and it's

not good for docs either.

Docs getting paid $18 a visit is not

why they went to medical school and why

they completed residency and why they've done it.

Fellowships, et cetera.

And if they aren't seeing a patient for

$18, Scott, how many patients do they have

to see a day to make that possible?

Well, it's transactional, very transactional, and

we're not here for that.

That transactional care doesn't serve us long term.

So the concept is the bigger picture is we have

to reinforce the bond between physicians and their patients.

We have to remind patients that, yes,

technology is amazing, but stop doing silly

things like booking a teledoc appointment.

Stop going to Costco and Walmart for your healthcare.

I love Costco. I love Walmart.

That's not a knock on them.

When I want seven cases of sparkling water, I

go to else are you going to go?

There's one place.

When I want twelve pounds of macadamia

nuts, where else would you go?

But for healthcare, the transaction of that is not

the right way for it to be rendered.

So we built a marketplace model.

Sniffle for providers is the

clinical and physician app.

Sniffle for patients is the patient app.

And the two sync up just like the

Uber driver and Uber rider apps would.

But the difference where we really have applied a lot of

our thinking, a lot of our Energy, a lot of our

capital, is that if you're going to ask someone to download

your app, you must give them remarkable value.

Otherwise they're going to download it and they're going to

uninstall it within, I'm going to say, 48 hours.

If an app doesn't do

something for me, pretty tremendous.

I'll give it a day, probably not more than two to see.

Are they going to send me a push notification?

Are they going to send me something that activates

me to really see how to use this app?

And if they don't do that, then you're gone.

You've been removed from my real

estate of my mobile device.

So for us, using AI and advanced

tech is how we bring kind of

these remarkable experiences to physicians and patients.

There's a lot that we do in the app to be

able to leverage AI, but it's always about making sure that

you and your medical home, you and your physician, you and

your provider, can have easy connectivity and that real data can

be shared and exchanged, not based on a Dr.

Google search or a WebMD doom scroll that you

remember the first time you brought your kid.

Like, I remember being spooked

about all sorts of things.

We used to facetime our moms all the time.

Is this normal? Is this okay?

Get on WebMD.

Oh, I don't know.

This is bad.

I think I broke them.

And that's terrifying.

For new parents, some of the feedback that we've gotten

from physicians is they really don't like it when a

patient comes in and tells them what they've.

That I get that I understand, I'm sure.

Similarly, when you walk in to assess a potential client's

issues and they already tell you what all the issues

are and exactly the solution that they need.

You're the expert.

Your team here at Ben, you guys need

to be able to go through your proper

discovery and assessment to provide the right diagnosis.

And so I get why a physician wants that.

But here's the thing, doc.

You can't take the Internet back, right?

That genie is never going back in that bottle.

Horses out of the barn.

So if the reality is that a patient's always going

to come back and ask or tell you, hey, this

is what's going on with me, you can't stop that.

But what we can do, what if we

give them medically curated AI to help them

make more informed and more accurate assessments and

understanding what's going on with them?

So in our sniffle for patients app, we

have a tool we've labeled our diagnosis tool.

So our stance, to really emphasize to

the physician community, only you, a licensed

medical provider, should give someone a diagnosis.

But an ignosis is an AI rendered diagnosis.

And our diagnosis tool is built on a

machine learning protocol that has over 14 million

patient visits that have been loaded into it.

Here's where it becomes really powerful.

When then you, Scott, put your family medical history

and you put your lifestyle, and then you put

your chief complaint or your first symptom, the AI.

If we both did that, and we both say

we have a stomachache, the questions that the AI,

the branching logic that's going to come for you

is going to be different than me because of

my family medical history, which makes this curated.

And you're going to go through this questionnaire, and based

on how you answer the questions, a set of differentials

are going to come back or potential diagnoses.

That return of those differentials has a 95% accuracy

rating, which is incredible, unlike the success in the

insurance space, where the opposite is doing well.

That's right.

So with a 95% accuracy rating to understand

what's going on, you can make the right

decision on what you should do next.

For yourself, for your wife, for your kids,

for a loved one, a church member, whoever.

The ability to have real visibility of what's going on

in your health journey, I think, is extremely powerful.

And this can help people on both

sides of this pendulum that you've heard

of hypercondriacs, there are cybercondriacs that will.

That's a new term. I hadn't heard that one.

Yeah, that's a thing. Okay.

Hey, if WebMD is like your launch page, when

you open your browser, you might be one.

I think that's a safe assessment.

I'm going to give that a 95% accuracy.

Those folks are freaking themselves

out about everything, right?

Every time their stomach hurts.

It's an appendicitis.

Every rash is stage seven something.

Hey, let's bring your anxiety down.

Let's bring your stress down.

Let's use some medically curated AI

to find out what's going on.

On the opposite side of that spectrum

are people that just dismiss everything.

It's fine.

Yeah, my stomach's been hurting for the

last ten days, but it's fine.

I'll be okay.

Well, you might be okay, but your appendix also might

be about to explode, so let's not dismiss that.

And if we can give people powerful tools and also

the privacy to be able to do that, because maybe

not everyone wants to be able to go disclose all

these things to their physician right away, but if they

could have visibility to what really is happening, then in

the app, they can hit a button and schedule an

appointment with their doctor, with their practice.

Not the random guy getting $18 a visit

that you're never going to see again. That's right.

And if your doctor isn't on the sniffle

platform, then you can hit another button, send

an invite, and say, hey, Dr.

Scott, I want to start seeing you on sniffle.

Will you please check it out?

But we're trying to say to that physician, we've

given robust tools here for your patient, and we're

trying to make sure that she doesn't go do

something silly like go to Costco or go to

book some random retail healthcare appointment and leave your

patient panel, because that's not good for your practice.

And while it's not good for your

practice, it's really not good for her.

Because now no one else is understanding all the other

elements that you do because you've been seeing her as

her physician for the last three, 4510 years. Right.

Continuity of care can make a huge

impact in how you consider treatment plans.

So in the sniffle for patients

app, we've got the diagnosis tool.

We then also have Sniffle Rx card.

It's four times more powerful than good Rx.

It'll save up to 85% on prescriptions.

Our oldest boy has a monthly medication used

to cost us just under $50 a month.

We now get it for $8 a month.

That's just one script.

That's an incredible amount of money that

people can have access to save.

And in the app, you can put in the name of the drug,

the dosage, the amount of times per day you need to take it

in your zip code, and within as little as 5 miles.

It'll bring up every single pharmacy in real time and

show you exactly what they're selling the drug for.

So you can say, no, Dr.

Chris, don't send this to cvs, send it to Tom

Thumb because it's $37 cheaper there, which is insane that

there can be that disparity of pricing within your community,

but it's happening constantly, all the time.

I have a feature enhancement.

I'm just going to ask for now, if you

can actually somehow tap into the inventory of these

pharmacies, that would be huge because we've got some

monthly medications in our family and literally when we're

getting it refilled one month at a time, and

the doctor says, please call and find the pharmacy

that has it before I call in the script.

And so anyway, if you could just

streamline that, that would be awesome.

We experienced the same thing.

And I'm trying to figure out if there's a way

to be able to have access to the inventory controls.

But, yeah, I understand that's definitely problematic because

getting a script delivered to somewhere for them

to only say we're out doesn't, and we

don't know when it's coming back in.

No idea when it's coming back in.

Yeah, that is problematic.

I'll add it to the list.

All right, well, there's a long

list of things that are.

I won't even royalties on that.

Just your gift to humanity. Yes. Very kind. Yeah.

I'll benefit from it at some point.

Absolutely, you will. Yeah.

So, yeah, the sniffle patient app is how

we try to bring value through those things.

On the physician side, there's AI tools

in there to digitize the intake process.

Rich, my business partner, before the pandemic, sent

a survey out to 3000 doctors, got about

300 responses, which is actually astonishing.

And the question was, why aren't you more

interested in incorporating telehealth into your practice?

The top two reasons that came back were

insurance payers don't want to reimburse for it,

which all that's gone away and changed because

the pandemic changed all of that for everyone.

So that problem has been solved.

But two, the administrative burden, it isn't worth

it because I'm only going to get reimbursed

on average somewhere between sixty five dollars to

seventy five dollars for that virtual consult.

But I got to chart it, I got to

code it, I got to submit it, I got

to make sure insurance doesn't much overhead.

Kick it back or they just lose it.

Should it finally get approved, then I'm going to

get my money somewhere between 90 to 180 days.

The manual efforts that's involved in all of

that, you're spending 60% to 70% on of

the administrative cost to capture back $20, $30.

So the juice wasn't worth the squeeze.

What we've digitized inside the sniffle for providers

app is we've eliminated a lot of that

administrative burden using AI, using advanced tech, we're

integrated with 800 payers and Medicare and Medicaid.

So a patient can take a picture

of her insurance card in 3 seconds.

I pull back all plan details so you no longer

have someone at the front office calling saying, hi, I'm

calling to see if Chris Matthews insurance is still eligible.

We don't have a Chris Matthews. Oh, hey, Mr.

Matthew, your insurance is ineligible. Okay.

My last name is Matthew Oneteen Os.

Oh, we didn't do that.

Okay, so then the front office is

calling, hey, Blue Cross, it's Chris.

Matthew Oneteen Os. Oh, yeah.

His insurance that back and forth is still a

very manual process and a majority of all physician

offices still today, it blows me away that in

2024 that that's even a thing.

Yeah, it's not going to be because we're

here, we're going to roll this thing out.

We're going to make that possible.

And this idea of people like, thinking

AI is going to take our jobs.

Well, you're going to cut the front office staff.

No, that's not what I want at all.

I want you to repurpose that front office staff.

I want that front office person to call me, your patient

and say, hey, you had an appointment seven days ago.

How are you feeling?

Did you get all three of those?

No, I only got one of them.

I just figured, no patient, I

need you to get all three.

Okay, let's get on the sniffle Rx card.

Let's find out where we can get it the cheapest.

I need you to get all three for

this condition to really be taken care of.

And if we can free people to do more

of what I believe people got into healthcare to

do, to heal people, to care for people, not

to do administrative insurance driven bs.

If we can free them from some of these administrative

burdens that have been put upon them, where they can

really focus on the relationship of the care that they're

rendering, I think we can help people find joy in

medicine and keep them in medicine and recruit more people

to want to say, I want to do this because

I see the joy that this physician is having in

her practice and I want that for my life.

It's a big ask, but it's

worthy of the pursuit, for sure.

So you alluded to kind of the two

sided marketplace where you've got to have the

physicians and you've got to have the patients.

And we've actually had a number of

guests on who have similar models.

For sniffle, which has been the bigger challenge?

Has it been acquiring the patient

side or the physician side?

The physician side, for sure.

Physicians have so much that's put upon them. Right.

So change fatigue is something that all of us

in the professional worlds have to deal with.

But the amount of compliance that doctors have got

to go through, like think about the last time

you went to a physician appointment, whether it was

you or for one of your kids.

How much time did the provider or the physician

in the room get to just be in the

room with you, focused on you and not with

a laptop in front of them documenting everything?

Because of all the administrative checks in the

box, checking they've got to do pretty limited.

That's problematic.

So when physicians hear that we have invested nearly

$4 million into this platform, that I have solved

the intake problem, I've integrated with all the insurance

payers, I can verify your payment methods, and the

patient comes to you diagnosed or preassessed.

And I'm going to give you this world class

enterprise level software that you can onboard yourself in

less than 15 minutes that you will be delivering

prescriptions through in less than 24 hours.

And that's backstopped with an integration we

have with sure scripts and the DEA

that we've solved all of that.

And I can give this to your practice.

You can be onboarded in 15 minutes, delivering scripts

in 24 hours for a total investment of $0.

The biggest challenge I'm facing right now

is it's too good to be true.

There's no chance we get taken advantage of

all the time in the medical community.

There is no chance this can be real or

you've got some secret hidden egg in here that's

going to go off and then you're going to

hammer me with some sort of surprise pill.

That's been really hard.

When I share with them what our true

intent is, is to say we have to

take health care back from bad business models.

I'm coming alongside you because I want you

to make sure your patients don't do silly

things when they get distracted by retail health.

I need this to happen.

Sure, for your patients.

But this is for me and my family, and

it's part of my story with unfortunately, my dad

and he passed away when he shouldn't have because

there wasn't the type of tools available like this

and the kind of advocacy that could be available

to prevent some of the things that happen.

And listen, I'm a fan of the medical community.

I'm here for the medical community.

So this is not anything to come at them with.

It's to be able to say, if we

can equip everyone, physicians and family members, with

better tools, then we can all be more

aware and proactive and advocate for our family

members when they have these health interventions.

So when I share that, then people give it a look.

The hardest thing to do is get people to

recognize that we have a true intent, that our

North Star is pure, and I'm, again, radically transparent.

If you're giving me, the doctor in the clinic,

this platform for free, and you're not charging my

patients, then where are you making money?

In the app on the patient side,

I sell a package of ancillary benefits,

dental, vision, behavioral health labs and imaging.

Sniffle benefit package is $15 a month, and

it covers for you, it'd cover you, and

all five of you would be covered.

$15 a month.

No waiting period, no out of network, no maximum.

And these are really strong solutions.

Like my dental partner is Aetna.

Go to any of the 260,000 locations

that accept the Aetna dental access schedule.

You show them your sniffle app.

If a normal cleaning is $75, you're getting it for 30.

If all five of you need a crown, have at it.

If all five of you want braces, have at it.

That's not like most dental plans.

Same thing with vision, same

thing with behavioral health.

So they're really robust.

But we've brought all this together and put it

in this app, and that's where we make our

money, at $15 a month for an individual, and

to cover that individual and their entire family, I

believe we're offering an incredible value.

You're an employer, maybe you know what the

cost is of the employee benefits here.

You know for a fact there's no chance to employ

or to offer benefits for an employee and family for

dental envision alone for $15 a month, I think that

the dental cost alone is like 50.

So the too good to be true man, that's going to be

a really hard thing to get through, I got to believe.

But the other thing that comes to mind for me,

I don't know what the landscape is like throughout the

rest of the country, but being here in north Texas,

it really seems like there are very few medical practices

that aren't part of some much larger network.

And the Baylor, Scott and White office that's in

my suburb of Dallas, that decision to take on

an app like that, that doesn't seem like it's

going to be a localized decision.

It's going to be something that Baylor, Scott

and White, or Texas Health or insert large

healthcare system, it's going to be their call.

So is the way that you win to find

those physicians that are still independent, it's a great

call out, and the answer is yes.

The low hanging fruit, as the term

goes sometimes, is independent physicians because they're

fighting fiercely to stay independent.

There's this pendulum thing that happens just for discussion

sake, say every ten to 15 years, the big

hospital systems go out and buy every private practice.

So now Dr. Scott and Dr.

Chris work for Baylor.

Well, now we don't have to be crushing

ourselves to see 40 patients a day.

They bought the practice, we got a little coin

in our pocket, they put us on salary.

So now you think 20 patients a day is plenty.

And I'm like, yeah, I'm good with that.

Well, then all of a sudden, the practice isn't generating

the revenue that it used to, and we're not getting,

and it's not paying off in the number of referrals

that are supposed to be going to the mothership, which

is why big hospital systems buy these practices, to get

the referrals for the surgeries and all the other things.

So then at some point they come

back and say, this isn't worth it.

We'll sell the practice back to you.

And we're like, okay, for pennies on

the dollar, great, we'll do the deal.

Still, our practice, like, it's the same building,

it's the same staff, it's you and me

just changing the sign on the door.

We're just changing the sign on the door.

Well, now we're going to crank it back up to

40 patients a day, and then we'll wait for the

next wave of things that's been going on.

And I've seen that happen at least

three times in my healthcare recruiting days.

So which cycle are we entering into right now?

There's still a lot of acquisition.

The thing that's different and unique now is there's

a lot of PE and VC firms, mainly PE

firms, that are acquiring practices left and right.

And it's because, again, being a brilliant physician and

a brilliant business person is a lot to ask

of someone, and so a lot of them are

just saying it's not worth it.

So I'm either going to have to sell this

off to someone or just quit the profession.

And I've invested way too much into

this to leave the profession of medicine.

So a lot of them are selling it off.

But there are independent physicians out there that are

looking for these types of solutions, and those aren't

the groups that people are bringing multimillion dollar platforms

to and saying, I will not only implement this

to you for $0, we own a marketing agency.

If you're open to it, I will bring you new patients.

I will launch campaigns to say, grapevine

family medicine is accepting new patients. Dr.

Scott would love to see you virtually via sniffle.

Sure, I'm plugging sniffle in there, but

I'm also helping people, hopefully find a

new medical home and grow your practice.

I think the Pareto principle absolutely applies here.

I think 80% of physicians out there are

trying to get by the beating of being

a doctor and all of the other things.

It's a lot.

But I do believe that 20% are

out there saying, we want to grow.

We want to find a way to use technology and

to reach more people and to serve more people.

The brilliant thing about virtual care, this

is another concept that we're really trying

to put a lot of education around.

Again in this hypothetical scenario

that we're both physicians.

By the way, congratulations, Dr. Scott. It's amazing.

Yeah.

You showed up, and I got an MD behind my name. Amazing.

We're licensed in Texas, which means we

can treat patients anywhere in Texas.

Now, I'm not foolish enough to think that virtual

care can do all things for all people, but

it can do a lot for a lot of

people, especially in places where there are healthcare deserts.

So what if we launch a digital marketing campaign

in Midland or Brownwood or El Paso or corpus,

and we hire a bilingual provider to join us,

and we can now start providing health equity and

access to people that don't have the ability to

pay for the incredibly expensive health insurance that exists

today, but maybe for a virtual visit, they could. Right?

And now, all of a sudden, it's not about

people being able to drive into our parking lot.

It's about the fact that we are licensed in

the state of Texas so we can treat people

from the panhandle to the south coast.

And that can give a practice the opportunity

to really grow exponentially without having to grow

their physical footprint and generate revenue.

And if they're generating more revenue, they're

impacting more people, and hopefully they're finding

more joy in their everyday practice.

I love what you all are doing.

I love the mission, and more importantly,

I love the heart behind it.

So often it's not just the what, but it's the why.

And you clearly have some very personal

motivations and drivers for what you're doing.

I want to dig more into the startup

life and the challenges, and you shared a

funny story about when the app launched.

I don't know if we want to tell that one

or not, but what have been some of the biggest

challenges and surprises that you guys have faced?

Yeah.

For your listeners.

If you Google sniffle, there's more than just

an AI driven virtual care platform out there,

which I had no idea about.

Not even remotely related.

Zero relation.

Yeah, we won't spoil the surprise.

Yeah, look forward to them letting

you know what they found.

So yeah, that was a surprise.

The other thing is, I'm curious to

get your take on this growing.

Any startup, you need to be solving

a problem that's worthy of solving.

You need to have a real differentiated approach so you're

not just another vanilla ice cream vendor, and you got

to be able to really connect with it and have

purpose and passion behind that so it can drive you

through all of the challenging times.

Like when that other company website pops up and you're

like, oh my gosh, what are we going to do?

Those things, I think, are

absolute requirements and ingredients.

The hard thing is finding the right squad of people that

want to believe in what you believe and see the world

the way that you want to see it, that want to

see the world the same way that you see it.

And this isn't about people having to

be completely like minded and single thought,

but it's that they're missional, they're believers.

And they say, I want to

contribute to that improved world.

I was fortunate to go through this Simon Sinek workshop,

and my why is to boldly connect with people so

that we can contribute to an improved world.

I try to actively live that very evident in

my business and how we do what we do.

So in the interview process, when we find people

like what I know I'm going to do a

better job is being more specific about that.

That's the hardest part for me, is finding

people that can believe in that and want

to believe in that and contribute more.

And it's hard to find people that you want to

pour into that you know, also are willing to be

poured into and want to be able to have that,

but also align with what your vision is.

Yeah, one of our goals at my firm is

we want a candidate to be sold on our

company before they even get to their first interview.

And we actually had three interviews yesterday and

a couple more earlier in the week.

And I'm going to say that 90

plus percent of them were there.

And you're right, there's the mission aspect.

You've got to be aligned with the mission, and you've

also got to be talking to people that have the

skills that you need for whatever these positions are.

But I may be naive, but I think that

culture is something that can overcome so much.

And, for example, Zappos is a company

I've admired for a long time.

And kind of their mentality is

we're in the customer service business.

We just happen to sell shoes.

And for us, we're in the automation business.

But we go about how we operate with our team.

That my hope is that if we did something completely

different, that they'd be on board with that, too.

Because of the culture, because of how we treat

them, because of how we value our people. Yeah.

Zappos is an incredible organization.

Have you ever been to Vegas and toured?

I'm actually going to be there

next week for a conference.

And, man, if I could slip away and do

their thing, I would do that in a heartbeat.

So for our listeners, Zappos has,

it's not like the academy.

They've got a program where if you want to come

in from the outside and learn the Zappos way of

doing business, they've got a program for you.

And so if you're ever in Vegas and you

can tack on a date of your conference or

whatever you're out there for, I would recommend it.

Even though I haven't been.

It's on my business bucket list.

I also haven't been, but I know people

that have, and it's the real deal.

So I hope you'll get a chance to fill

your cup with granting yourself that bucket list wish.

That's really impressive.

If you can get 90% of your candidates to be already

wanting the job upon showing up for their first interview, then

you guys are doing lots of the right things.

One of the things that if you ask my team

what Scott's three questions, they'll roll their eyes first.

Here we go.

Here's Scott's three questions.

And it's, can they do the job?

Do they want the job or do they want a job?

And I'm going to swap out job and company.

Use those interchangeably there.

And the third is, is this somebody?

I want to have a beer with.

In the example of this week, I think almost every

single person, almost the first thing out of their mouth

was something the effect of, I want to work here.

And so anyway, we're getting away from you.

This is about you.

Looking back, you're a couple of years into this.

What would you do differently?

I would enlist more patients and recognize that, although,

okay, so I was in healthcare startups, but healthcare

staffing startups, not all startups are equal.

When you're in medtech and you're dealing

with actual physicians, delivering patient data, the

amount of additional compliance and complication of

all the data is significant.

And I didn't have the proper respect for what that

process entails and requires so more patience for that.

And then thing that I'm starting to go through

this right now, there's a book called Traction.

I feel like, you know, big, big fan.

Check out our episode, our toolbox episode

with Kurt Swindahl, and he will unpack

traction and the US model for you. Great. I can't wait.

I just started listening to the book, realizing, wow,

this is going to uncover some ugly truths, and

this is going to be a little painful, but

I think this process is going to be really

worthy so that everyone has radical transparency to what

we're doing and everyone's held accountable.

And when you said, I definitely thought you knew

traction, because I use this framework now, and I've

been asking myself constantly, do you get it?

Do you want it?

Do you have the capacity? GWC?

And those three things are so simple,

but also really create alignment for people.

So if I could grant myself a wish and a wand,

I would go back a little bit in time, and I

would have started this EOS process sooner so that I could

have been using that up into this point.

The good news for us is we've just gone live.

We're live with ten clinics and

about 85 providers, about 100,000 patients.

That's still really early, and so there's

still plenty of time for me.

I'm going to have to scramble, and I really can't

wait to listen to this episode, to see what the

timeline looks like, to implement an EOS process, and to

do it well and to do it thoughtfully.

That's the other thing, is to be

more thoughtful about what we're thinking through.

Because what I'm thinking through is not only am

I trying to prevent a situation like I went

through for a family member, but I'm also trying

to think about how do I take the time

to be more thoughtful for that physician?

How do I take the time to be more

thoughtful for an administrator who's got a really tough

job of being a physician liaison, a patient liaison,

and has to navigate the entire insurance complex.

And if we could take more time to be

more thoughtful about how we're trying to apply our

solution to problems that they face, that I think

would allow us to go further, faster.

We designed our platform to be digitally deployed, so once

we really start creating momentum, it's going to be hard

to be able to slow it, which is great.

I mean, that's not anything I'm complaining about.

But once it starts really moving quickly, the time

to be able to pause and think and tinker

and is going to be hard, at least harder.

You mentioned you've talked

about your business partner.

I don't have a partner in my business.

Other guests have. Other.

Some guests haven't.

What are some things that you

think have made your relationship, your

working relationship with your partner successful?

So I'm fortunate to know I'm chief growth officer here

at Sniffle and Rich and I are doing this.

I'm also a partner and co founder at

a digital marketing agency called Valiant Digital.

My business partner there is Dan.

With Dan, we have very much a know.

He's like a brother to me, so

there's a lot of trust there.

But the thing that really allows our

partnership to flourish is I've never met

someone more curious in my life.

He is always tinkering, but he also loves what he does

so much that no one has to ever ask him.

You don't ask the boss, if you're going to run an

organization, you've got to have some of that drive already.

But his downtime, his nights, his weekends,

his holidays, he's looking at new platforms.

He's testing things because he's just

curious to say what if?

And one of the great things that I've gotten to

experience by watching him is we bring these other digital

marketing creatives in and they build an ad, and he

says, okay, build an ad in front of me.

And Dan starts questioning their process and

starts saying, well, why not do this? Why not do that?

Why aren't you considering this?

And a lot of these candidates

would say, you can't do that.

And Dan's response is, why?

Who said you can't?

Well, that goes against how I was taught the practices.

Okay, well, let me show you why

this thinking pattern applied in this way

can generate a result ten times faster.

And they see this, and I see the light bulb.

I'm not a digital marketer, but I

see their light bulb go off.

And I think, wow, that is incredible that his curiosity

is now going to be able to guide and mentor

these people to be five times better and five times

more aware and knowledgeable and skilled at what they do.

And that is a really cool thing to be able

to contribute to and see know in whatever capacities I

help in the organization that Dan gets to do that

for them, which then trickles down to all of those

clients having incredible results with their digital marketing campaigns and

happy customers taking care of their customers and their employees

and those lives and those communities.

And that ripple effect keeps going.

And with rich, he has a pure heart

about why he wants to do this.

The membership models and the randomness

of healthcare previously is just not

something that sits well with him.

And he's a guy who's seen the movie before.

And so for me, it's really powerful

because I've never had negotiated talks.

When we're talking about series a and series b

funding and the numbers that are being thrown around.

It's uncomfortable for me sometimes when I talk about

the valuation that we're planning on having in a

three year window, because this isn't part of the

world that I have been in.

But from rich, what I've learned is stand tall and

be proud of the fact that that is what we're

going to be doing, that this is our opportunity, that

we are going to bring this to people.

And in exchange, by doing good for

others, we too will benefit from that.

And that's really powerful.

Learning things, watching him navigate high

stakes discussions with high brass law

firms and institutional investors.

And that process is energizing for me.

But it's also a huge learning

opportunity, which has been really cool.

Finding people that have experience that you don't and

skills that you don't, I think is so critical.

And in fact, our leadership team doesn't know this

yet, but we're about to go through an exercise

where I'm going to have all of them go

through something called Clifton strengths finders.

And one of the things I'm really curious to see is, okay,

I've got my top ten and I know my bottom ten, right?

These are the areas where I'm pretty weak.

I'm really curious to layer us all side by side

and see, hey, do we complete the puzzle together, or

are there still some gaps that we're missing?

And the other thing that strikes me in what you're

talking about is that one of the most common pieces

of advice that we get is find a mentor.

And I don't know that that's really

your relationship there, but it's that person.

Like you said, he's seen the movie.

He can guide, he can provide.

Hey, don't do this. Do this.

Are you thinking about this, Chris?

And I think that those are so key.

I totally agree.

And what I'm grateful to rich for is

he does it in a very graceful way.

One of the things that I've learned from him,

and this is a phrase I use often, if

we decide that we're going to give you the

responsibility for something, we're also going to give you

the authority to have the full responsibility.

So you're not going to see us come

in and micromanage on top of you.

If this is your responsibility, great. It's now yours.

Do you accept it?

Do you own it?

If you say yes, then you have the authority.

And if you come to us and say, I have to have

a, b, and c to make this happen, well, then my role,

I got to go get you a, b, and c.

That framework is really powerful because

it's empowering to other people.

The team that we've hired on with us, they now

know that, and they bring that up to me.

Hey, listen, Chris, if I'm responsible for this, that

means I have the authority for it, correct?

That's correct.

Well, then in that case, I need the budget to do

A, B, and C, and I can't skimp on it.

Okay, we'll make it work, then.

And that confidence that they get to portray, I know, makes

them excited about what they're doing, but it also makes me

excited because I'm like, here's a person that is so certain,

and that's a term that I really like. Certain.

Are we certain about this? I'm not sure.

Well, then we should measure again.

We should think about this a little bit more

because we get one chance to be certain, and

if we're certain and they're certain about it, and

they're saying, I'm certain, we need this. Okay.

And that gives me excitement because I love having

expertise around me and the fact that I get

to have expertise as teammates and experts as teammates,

what a fortunate position for me to be in.

And I'm learning from them while they're executing

their plans, which is a really cool experience.

And something I've got to

imagine you've seen firsthand, too.

Yeah, without a doubt, man, what

you just described, that's bold.

And that takes a lot of courage to say.

If you're responsible, then you need to tell me what you need,

and I got to figure out how to get it to you. Yeah.

Listen, Scott, don't get me wrong.

It can backfire.

It can backfire.

But if you can be certain about the

people that you say, come aboard, you remember

the book, good to great Jim Collins.

Get the right people in the right seats on the bus.

If you can be confident that this is the right

person and you're bringing them on in the right seats.

Now, I will tell you, I'm sometimes not as

slow of a hirer as I should be, and

that's come back on me a couple of times.

So I'm still learning and reminding

myself, like, hey, do this more

methodically and structured and intentionally.

But ultimately, if we say this is the right person,

then I have to trust that they're the right person.

Because the thing is, I'm not just a coach.

I'm a player coach.

So I'm actively.

I've got my own initiatives, and I'm spinning

my own plates trying to drive revenue and

grow the company and look at strategic partnerships

and collaborations and capital raising.

I'm learning from rich.

At some point, Rich will move to a

chairman role, and I'll step into that role.

So there's an opportunity that I need

to be focused on listening and learning

and watching how this process goes.

So being able to have someone and say, I trust

your expertise, you go get it done, because I've got

my own things I need to also be doing.

And together, our one plus one equals seven, and

then you add another teammate, and then all of

a sudden, one plus one plus one equals 19,

and we start doing that exponentially.

We just keep holding each other accountable.

And I think, again, framework like eos will help

us be even more accountable and more transparent.

But, yeah, don't get me wrong,

it comes with some stressful nights.

There are definitely lots of times where I

have a hard time turning the brain off.

I wake up really early, and

there's no going back to bed.

And so it's just, let's get up and let's get to

it, which I know is not necessarily always a good thing.

Right.

I need to find a way to trust,

but verify, but just trust and release.

I think about where you are today.

You've got this incredible opportunity in front of you.

You are passionate about the kind

of work that you're doing.

You've got this very well thought out

product that you're bringing to market.

You've got capital.

You're empowering people.

You're empowered.

I want you to think back to that three days

in Wichita and the hojo, what would you tell yourself

then looking back from where you're at right now?

Stay open.

Just don't close yourself off.

And I think that's really been the thing

that's allowed me to kind of thrive throughout

the different roles that I've had.

I don't always approach everything.

Listen, I can be a know it all because I feel

like I've had so much failure that I know how to

accelerate past the failure now and not necessarily always get to

the win, but I definitely know how to get around the

failures on my way to the win.

So sometimes that isn't necessarily a great thing.

But I try to be open.

I really enjoy engaging with other people and being open to

listen and learn from them because I'm absolutely certain there's a

lot that I can learn from you and from your team

and the next person I sit at a coffee shop with

next to and say, hey, howdy, how are you doing?

I'm open to that idea.

So that openness has served me well.

So I would remind myself back then, while you are

definitely mad and lots of cursing going on, I would

say, take a deep breath, start doing yoga.

It will help you, young Chris, and just keep open.

What's next?

What's next is we really have finalized

our go to market here at Sniffle.

I'm really excited about the way in which

you're going to bring this to the marketplace.

In the next nine months, we'll be pursuing our

series A, which is a wild experience for me,

all the preparation that's needed for that.

And then within twelve months of that, we'll be

pursuing our series B, which is another wild thing.

But I'm feeling very fortunate.

We have an incredible law firm based in Silicon Valley

in New York that arguably the top one or two

law firms for Series A and Series B transactions.

So to have them as our shepherd

on this is an incredibly fortunate thing.

But right now, for me, it's all about on the business

side, it's all about adoption and trying to get the word

out and showing people what our real intentions are.

And the easiest way for me to do

that is not necessarily to always talk.

It's to say, download the app and see for yourself.

Right.

Everything that I've talked about today, about what

we do, it's all laid out in the

app, so you'll know what our intentions are.

If you go and look at the app, if you interact with

the app, if you lean on the app and it holds up

for you, then you'll know why we're doing what we're doing.

So professionally, that's what I'm focused on, wanting

to grow a great team, really excited about

trying to go through this process of EOS.

And personally, one of the things that my wife and I

are really trying to do a better job of this year

is to do more experiential things with our family.

So we're taking our first family

vacation, just the four of us.

We've never done this before.

We're going to Puerto Rico in March, and it's amazing.

Okay, can I tell a quick tangent? Yeah.

My boys won't listen to this until they're way older.

But when they were much younger, the

boys are nine and seven now.

They were much younger.

I convinced them.

I came up with a tale that I used to be the

king of sea turtles and that I lived in the Indian Ocean

off the southern tip of India, where my family comes from.

And that one time I caught a jet stream

that brought me all the way to Florida. And.

Pretty tall tale.

I can be in a very elaborate.

I believe that tale teller.

So I caught a jet stream, and I told them all

about the jet stream and all the adventures along the way.

And I saw their mother on the beach, and

I decided, I'm going to give up the kingdom.

I'm going to find that girl, I'm going to

marry her, and we're going to have a family.

And the boys early on were like, is

that why you're so good in the pool?

And I'm like, clearly. Clearly. That's awesome.

And then on a few trips that we've gone to

Galveston, there was a time where there's a pelican, right?

Hey, dad, do you know that pelican?

And I go, and the bird looks back and this is real.

I'm like, of course it's real, right?

So my oldest is pretty much like, he's done with it,

but my youngest still entertains it every now and then.

So one of the things that.

One of our adventures that we have in Puerto Rico

is we're going to go swimming with sea turtles.

And my youngest is like, we're going to get

to meet so many of our family members.

And I'm like, yeah, that's right.

I really hope you pack a crown in your suitcase

and you wear that when you get in the.

I got to find some way to bring this together.

But, yeah, so that's.

Personally, that's something we're doing, is

trying to create more experiences.

My boys have really gotten into fishing.

So try to go on some fishing trips and do things that,

as you know, so cliche being a parent, it's so cliche.

But the days are long and the years are super fast.

And while we are together, I want to plant those

seeds and plant those memories as much as I can.

So that's what's next for us, at least

coming up in the next couple of months.

Man, I've thoroughly enjoyed every bit of this, and

I think we could probably talk for two more

hours and still have lots more to say.

But, man, I just want to encourage you.

Keep that passion and keep doing what you're doing, and

I can't wait to see where this goes for you.

I appreciate it very much.

We get to do hard things.

You do hard things here for your people.

I'm going to do hard things for lots of people,

and it's a privilege to be able to do that.

So thanks for letting me share some of this with you.

Thanks for sharing. Appreciate it. Chris.

Yeah, that was Chris Mathew,

chief growth officer of Sniffle.

To learn more, visit sniffle.com.

If you or a founder you know would like to be

a guest on In the Thick of It, email us at

intro@founderstory.us.