Hands-On Growth Strategies for Healthcare Innovators with Asha Strazzero-Wild, co-founder and Principal at Outpointe

[00:00:02] Hey everyone, welcome back to the Outcomes Rocket Founder Stories. I'm so thrilled that you guys tuned in to be with us again. Today, I've got the privilege of hosting Asha Strazzero-Wild. She is the co-founder and Principal at Outpointe, and she brings over 10 years of valuable experience in the healthcare sector, driven by a deep commitment in improving community health.

[00:00:29] She's worked in public health, health technology, and corporate marketing for healthcare organizations, and she's passionate about ensuring that healthcare organizations have the right systems and processes.

[00:00:42] But I can't tell you guys how important this is, systems and processes to launch new innovations and successfully grow sustainably.

[00:00:51] She's been with the advisory board, she earned her programmatic marketing certification, and she's been at other organizations making huge contributions to organizations that are startups, as well as multi-million dollar and billion dollar organizations.

[00:01:08] So excited to have her here on the podcast. Asha, thanks for joining me.

[00:01:11] Thanks for having me, Saul.

[00:01:13] It's a privilege. Hey, it was so much fun to connect with you in Boston. I'm glad we got to do that.

[00:01:18] Yes, thank you so much for making time. I mean, I know your time is limited, so it was great that we got to spend some time together and have a coffee.

[00:01:26] It was a lot of fun, and the power of meeting people in person, what you could do in 30 minutes or an hour literally will take six months digitally.

[00:01:35] So Asha and I had a chance to connect, learned so much about her and her business that I thought, man, I've got to share what she's up to with you all.

[00:01:43] So with that said, Asha, help us understand more about you. What got you into entrepreneurship and what got you into health care?

[00:01:51] It's a great question, Saul. Like many people, I went to college, thought I was going to be pre-med, was super jazzed.

[00:01:57] I had a fellowship with the National Institute of Health in D.C. I was based out of Boston.

[00:02:02] I loved thinking about improving health care. All of us have been a patient. We've all struggled with health care, or at least we know someone who struggled with health care.

[00:02:11] And I always thought I was going to grow up and be a doctor.

[00:02:15] And when I was in college, I was really passionate about community service as well.

[00:02:19] So I spent a ton of time doing community service.

[00:02:22] And at the end of my college tenure was actually offered a teaching fellowship in under-resourced schools.

[00:02:27] And I thought, you know what? I'm going to take a crack at that.

[00:02:29] I'm going to put this little med school thing aside for a little while.

[00:02:32] I'm going to go do some community service work.

[00:02:34] I'm going to work with an organization where I got to work with students in an after-school setting

[00:02:38] and really think about the ways that we were supporting kids after school to engage in academics.

[00:02:44] And very quickly kind of came back to my health care roots of kids can't learn until they're healthy.

[00:02:49] And I think that's true for adults today, too.

[00:02:51] When you're not in a healthy space, when you're not feeling well, when you're hungry,

[00:02:55] when you don't have a roof over your head, you're not in a great space to be a positive contributor to society.

[00:03:00] And so kind of did that circle around of working with students and realizing I wanted to go back to work in health care

[00:03:08] and really was excited to start in the pediatric space.

[00:03:11] And so kind of came back and did a lot of work in the social determinants of health space.

[00:03:15] That's really where I grew up in public health.

[00:03:16] So really starting to understand what are the impacts of health on learning?

[00:03:20] How do we really understand how to improve health outcomes?

[00:03:23] I did a lot of work in almost 30 different pediatric clinics around the country

[00:03:27] and really got deep in kind of understanding the world of social determinants of health.

[00:03:32] And I loved working with our clinics.

[00:03:33] It was incredible work to be able to be with medical directors

[00:03:36] and very quickly discovered how frustrating hospital infrastructure was.

[00:03:40] And that's really where I became very passionate for, as you pointed out,

[00:03:44] kind of the structures and processes around health care.

[00:03:47] I love that, Asha.

[00:03:49] So a lot of I didn't know about the pediatric focus.

[00:03:52] So that's pretty cool to know.

[00:03:54] Yeah, that's really neat.

[00:03:56] And so, yeah, you know, health care kept calling you like you went into education,

[00:04:01] but it just kept calling you knocking at your door.

[00:04:05] And I'm glad you answered because you've been able to do some really great things in your career.

[00:04:09] But now with the work you're doing, your firm, Outpoint, you're doing big things.

[00:04:16] So talk to us about what Outpoint is up to and how you're making a difference.

[00:04:21] Sure.

[00:04:21] So our company is called Outpoint, and I love the name of it.

[00:04:25] For those of you who are boxing fans out there, there are a couple of ways you can win.

[00:04:29] You can have your total knockout, your knockout,

[00:04:32] but you can also Outpoint your opponent.

[00:04:34] And I love this.

[00:04:35] My business partner, Kelly Wilder, is very passionate about boxing.

[00:04:38] And when she shared this concept with me, I was like, I love that.

[00:04:41] It's all about strategy.

[00:04:42] And it's about coming back round after round and being able to say,

[00:04:47] like, you don't know what's going to happen, but you've got to be strategic.

[00:04:50] And when you keep on coming back, the chances of you winning are there.

[00:04:55] And I think that's really true, especially in the startup space.

[00:04:57] And what I love that we bring to the table is this idea of being really oriented around structure and process.

[00:05:04] And I think I always say it's kind of like building a house.

[00:05:07] You've got to build a really solid foundation.

[00:05:10] Hurricanes are going to come.

[00:05:11] You're going to take different hits.

[00:05:12] And if you don't have that solid foundation, it's going to be really tough to move forward.

[00:05:16] And so the work that we're doing at Outpoint is around growth strategy and execution.

[00:05:20] We support healthcare innovators to lay that foundation and really understand how do you bring best practice to building that house that is your organization.

[00:05:29] It's easy to come and be like, I got a great idea.

[00:05:31] I'm going to throw a bunch of bricks together.

[00:05:32] But in reality, there are a lot of great ideas out there.

[00:05:36] But the ones that last, that stand the storm, that Outpoint, those other companies out there are the ones that are really strategic, both in the setup and then the execution.

[00:05:46] That's awesome.

[00:05:47] So is your logo like a boxing glove?

[00:05:50] Well, it is a little bit of a boxing ring.

[00:05:53] Oh, I like it.

[00:05:54] We're going a little bit less for the violence.

[00:05:56] But, you know, we've got the boxing ring around it.

[00:05:59] And I think, you know, there's always that open space and you've got to let in ideas.

[00:06:04] You've got to share out ideas.

[00:06:05] But I think it's really important to make data-driven decisions and then just keep coming back and make sure that you're, again, really establishing that structure and process to get where you need to go.

[00:06:14] So cool.

[00:06:15] I love that.

[00:06:16] I did not have the context on Outpoint.

[00:06:19] And I really love it.

[00:06:20] I think I'll be using that analogy, Asha.

[00:06:23] I love it.

[00:06:24] Yeah.

[00:06:25] All right.

[00:06:26] Well, so you guys are working with growth strategy, you know, process development.

[00:06:32] Talk to us about how you're making a difference out there and what makes you guys different.

[00:06:36] Yeah, I think that's a great question, Saul.

[00:06:38] You know, there's a lot of consultancies out there.

[00:06:39] A lot of people say I do marketing consulting, growth strategy consulting.

[00:06:43] I'm going to help you do your GTM strategy.

[00:06:46] But what makes Kelly and I really different is we've got a lot of experience in this space.

[00:06:49] We've come from healthcare, from pharma, from health IT, from social determinants of health.

[00:06:56] We've had a ton of time actually doing the work and working alongside people who are doing the work.

[00:07:00] And I think what makes us really different is we're not just going to give you a PowerPoint deck and be like, hey, here's what you should do.

[00:07:05] A lot of consultancies do that.

[00:07:07] And I think what we are very proud of is serving as an extension of your team.

[00:07:12] You know, there's a lot of like, you know, you teach a person to fish.

[00:07:14] I think we even go one step beyond this.

[00:07:16] We can actually get in there.

[00:07:18] We can work with you.

[00:07:19] We will teach you.

[00:07:20] We will help you implement and design those structures and those best practices.

[00:07:24] We can actually do the work for you while you're standing up and getting your organization running.

[00:07:28] There's a lot involved in growth.

[00:07:30] It's not just I need a growth strategy plan.

[00:07:32] It's not just I need a sales plan or a marketing plan.

[00:07:35] It's all of those pieces.

[00:07:37] It's the personas, the ideal client profiles.

[00:07:40] It's your value messaging work.

[00:07:42] And so we'll come in and we'll work with you to both establish that, do the work with you and for you and help you migrate to grow your own company.

[00:07:51] It's amazing.

[00:07:52] So not only the strategy and insights, but also execution.

[00:07:56] I think that's so key.

[00:07:58] We do some of this work, too.

[00:07:59] And I'll tell you, you guys probably know this, right?

[00:08:01] Everybody listening, watching to this, you're like, oh, yeah, that thing that I paid 50K for that is collecting dust and we haven't done anything on.

[00:08:11] Yeah.

[00:08:11] Like you don't leave it to chance.

[00:08:13] I love Asha's approach here and sort of tackling it with you instead of just getting a PowerPoint.

[00:08:19] Yeah.

[00:08:20] And I think what's important, too, is to help people think about what is best practice.

[00:08:24] It's really easy to say, like, you should do this, but why should you do it that way?

[00:08:28] What's the data that shows this is the way that something can be done most effectively?

[00:08:33] Organizations do not have dollars to burn.

[00:08:35] They don't have time to waste.

[00:08:37] And so our goal is to help organizations really optimize the resources that they do have and use them to the best of their ability to glean the best results.

[00:08:46] Boom.

[00:08:47] Love that.

[00:08:48] We all want that.

[00:08:49] Asha, when we were together, you talked about product marketing and in particular, a very specific type of marketing related to your pragmatic marketing certification.

[00:09:02] I thought that was super interesting.

[00:09:04] So I want to unpack that here for folks that may not know about it.

[00:09:08] Like I didn't know about it two weeks ago before you and I got together.

[00:09:11] So let's share with them.

[00:09:13] Yeah.

[00:09:13] So a lot of folks out there get product management and product management kind of mixed up.

[00:09:19] Pragmatic marketing is a really specific way of thinking about product management.

[00:09:24] And I think what's really interesting about this, and I didn't know about it until I was at the advisory board company when they were generous enough to pay for me to go through the pragmatic marketing training.

[00:09:37] I think pragmatic marketing is not just a set of tools.

[00:09:45] It's a set of ways to think about the world of product management.

[00:09:49] And it really changed the way that I understood how we need to think about it.

[00:09:52] What's the competition?

[00:09:53] Again, what are those ICPs and personas and all of those wraparounds to allow you to really think about what are the most effective ways to understand the market, differentiate my product, and ensure that it launches successfully in the market.

[00:10:04] And it's more than just like, I've got a great idea.

[00:10:07] It's really doing all of that testing and understanding what will truly be successful in the market that you're in.

[00:10:14] For those of you who've done pragmatic marketing, I'm sure that you know how great it is.

[00:10:17] And if you're a product manager, I cannot recommend those courses more.

[00:10:20] That's awesome.

[00:10:21] Thanks for highlighting that.

[00:10:22] That's one of the many things that Asha and her team does.

[00:10:25] So certainly if that caught your ear or your attention, certainly in the show notes, we'll leave ways to get in touch with Asha and her team at Outpoint to learn more.

[00:10:35] All right.

[00:10:36] So and it is all about the data, right?

[00:10:38] It's taking a look at market data.

[00:10:39] It's taking a look at audience data and making the best decisions versus how you feel.

[00:10:44] And that's ultimately one thing that I really loved about it.

[00:10:49] Talk to us about as you've been building the business, right?

[00:10:51] We founder stories, right?

[00:10:53] That's what we're talking about here.

[00:10:54] What's been one of the biggest setbacks you've dealt with and sort of a big, big aha moment or win that you got out of overcoming that?

[00:11:02] Yeah.

[00:11:03] One thing that we are working on developing is really understanding metrics and understanding how to support organizations to dive into their metrics and really understand their growth trajectory.

[00:11:14] And so one of the things that I would say, not necessarily a setback, but a great learning is everything always takes more time than you think it does.

[00:11:19] You know, we have big aspirations to get ready to launch our tool.

[00:11:23] And as many things happen, it just takes a little longer.

[00:11:26] And, you know, it's like going to Home Depot or Lowe's.

[00:11:29] You're like, I'm going to fix this thing.

[00:11:31] It's no big deal.

[00:11:32] I got a leak under my sink.

[00:11:33] And you get home and you're like, I got to make three different trips back there.

[00:11:36] I've got to check this.

[00:11:37] I've got to do this small tweak.

[00:11:39] And so I think for me, I wouldn't necessarily call it a setback, but it's a reminder.

[00:11:44] Like things take time to do them well.

[00:11:46] And I think it's easy to rush forward and say, like, we just want to get this done.

[00:11:49] The reality is we don't do a great job.

[00:11:51] And again, kind of take the time to lay that foundation.

[00:11:53] It's not going to work in the end.

[00:11:55] And so I'm very excited that we'll be sharing our growth readiness outlook tool shortly.

[00:11:59] And it's all about how do we start to understand and partner with founders to see the growth trajectory that our companies can have.

[00:12:06] Well, that's super exciting.

[00:12:08] When is it going to be available, Dina?

[00:12:10] Coming soon.

[00:12:11] Definitely before the end of this fall.

[00:12:12] Okay.

[00:12:13] Awesome.

[00:12:13] So nice little hook there for everybody to stay tuned.

[00:12:17] And as we wrap up here, Asha, there's certainly big opportunities for people to stay in touch.

[00:12:23] What call to action would you leave people with and where would you point them to so they could, when this tool comes out, they know about it?

[00:12:31] Yep.

[00:12:31] You can certainly learn more at outpoint.com, O-U-T-P-O-I-N-T-E.

[00:12:37] So it's Outpoint.

[00:12:38] And I would say the biggest advice that I can leave people with is take a ready, aim, fire approach.

[00:12:44] This is not a world in which you want to, and it certainly isn't an industry space.

[00:12:49] We're going to be throwing spaghetti at a wall.

[00:12:50] And so I think for us, and I've always lived by this, both Kelly and I were really adamant about this in our last companies, is take the time.

[00:12:58] Don't rush.

[00:13:00] Ready, aim.

[00:13:01] Fire.

[00:13:02] And really think about how are you going to set yourself up to be nimble?

[00:13:06] The world is changing.

[00:13:08] Technology is changing.

[00:13:09] And so I think it's really important that you take the time to understand the market that you're in and build those systems around you so that you can have a solid foundation.

[00:13:17] Amazing.

[00:13:17] What a great call to action there, Asha.

[00:13:20] Everybody, ready, aim, fire.

[00:13:22] If you're doing the fire and then getting ready later or trying to figure it out, like maybe it's time that you check something else out because maybe it hasn't worked for you.

[00:13:33] And if it hasn't, now's the time.

[00:13:35] Show notes.

[00:13:36] Best ways to get in touch with Asha.

[00:13:37] We'll leave them there.

[00:13:39] Asha, thanks so much for being with us.

[00:13:41] This has been a big pleasure.

[00:13:43] Great.

[00:13:43] Thanks so much, Saul.

[00:13:44] Have a great day.

[00:13:45] You too.

[00:13:45] Bye.

[00:13:46] Bye.