Transforming Caregiving with Innovative Solutions with Jay Drayer, Founder and CEO at CareFlash

[00:00:02] [SPEAKER_01]: Hey everybody and welcome back to the Outcomes Rocket Founder Stories. I'm so excited to be

[00:00:10] [SPEAKER_01]: with an amazing person, health leader, recovering CFO as he likes to call himself. His name is Jay

[00:00:19] [SPEAKER_01]: Drayer. Jay is the founder of CareFlash, a visionary in caregiving solutions. The journeys

[00:00:27] [SPEAKER_01]: in his life led him to create Careopolis, followed by Petopolis and Kidopolis. All of these companies

[00:00:35] [SPEAKER_01]: make caregiving personal and help people with serious illness to end of life and their loved

[00:00:43] [SPEAKER_01]: ones really, even up to pets actually. He's helping pets now manage that situation in a

[00:00:50] [SPEAKER_01]: really nice way. So Jay, I'm excited to have you back on the podcast after I think way too long.

[00:00:56] [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, it's great to be back and we have some opportunity enough, some new developments to

[00:01:02] [SPEAKER_01]: discuss. So keeping things fresh. I love it. Jay, you're always keeping things fresh. That

[00:01:07] [SPEAKER_01]: doesn't surprise me about you. And look, part of the founder story series and what we're doing is

[00:01:13] [SPEAKER_01]: diving into the entrepreneurial journey and you and I had a chance to connect before the podcast.

[00:01:19] [SPEAKER_01]: You've been in this business for how long? Well, CareFlash is into its 20th year.

[00:01:24] [SPEAKER_01]: Congratulations. That is amazing. And it's a mature business that is really doing well and

[00:01:31] [SPEAKER_01]: it's a testament to you. So talk to us about how you got into it and talk to us about your

[00:01:36] [SPEAKER_00]: entrepreneurial journey. I've always been an entrepreneur since I was a kid, but more recently

[00:01:42] [SPEAKER_00]: than that in the 2003, four and five timeframe, I was serving as a caregiver to a loved one living

[00:01:48] [SPEAKER_00]: with an advancing illness. And at the time I was a busy CFO of a software company. But as I

[00:01:54] [SPEAKER_00]: watched this journey go on and on, it became more clear to me every week that if someone could

[00:01:59] [SPEAKER_00]: create a tool that would enable all these well-meaning friends and loved ones to become

[00:02:03] [SPEAKER_00]: more engaged in my journey as a caregiver, and of course, our loved one at the center of

[00:02:08] [SPEAKER_00]: this experience, as opposed to all the nonstop sympathies and well wishes, messages of concern

[00:02:14] [SPEAKER_00]: and prayers, and over and over again, how can we help? It would have been fundamental enough to my

[00:02:20] [SPEAKER_00]: ability to be effective as a caregiver. And out of that whole thing, I left corporate finance in 2005

[00:02:27] [SPEAKER_00]: and started CareFlash, which as you were saying in the backdrop to this chat this morning, is we

[00:02:33] [SPEAKER_00]: offer a couple of tools, one called a Careopolis and one called a Kidopolis. And so I'm eager to

[00:02:38] [SPEAKER_00]: chat with you more in depth about that and understand if you have any advice on how we

[00:02:43] [SPEAKER_00]: can continue to grow into different markets throughout the continuum of care.

[00:02:47] [SPEAKER_01]: I love that, Jay. Thank you for that. Thanks for the context. You were dealing with it yourself,

[00:02:52] [SPEAKER_01]: right? You had a situation where you wish you had better tools and they didn't exist. And oftentimes

[00:02:59] [SPEAKER_01]: that's the situation that the call that entrepreneurs answer is there's nothing here

[00:03:04] [SPEAKER_01]: for me, so I'm going to build it. So talk to us about the building process and in particular,

[00:03:09] [SPEAKER_01]: some of the successes that you've had along the way.

[00:03:12] [SPEAKER_00]: The building process was given that I had a background in software, I had a bit of a head

[00:03:17] [SPEAKER_00]: start in understanding the landscape what I was entering into. But basically I started surveying

[00:03:22] [SPEAKER_00]: our friends and loved ones as they continued to after the loss of our loved one, a few weeks of

[00:03:28] [SPEAKER_00]: hospice care in the home, the loss of our loved one, they continued with all the nonstop, I don't

[00:03:34] [SPEAKER_00]: want to say sympathies as much as condolences for months on end really. And I kept thinking

[00:03:40] [SPEAKER_00]: if I could solicit their advice on what I could do in building a tool that would enable them to

[00:03:46] [SPEAKER_00]: become more part of my journey, as opposed to more and more of the landscape. And by landscape,

[00:03:51] [SPEAKER_00]: people have busy lives and they have emotional barriers and concerns about intrusiveness.

[00:03:56] [SPEAKER_00]: There's a lot of reasons why people cannot engage or won't engage around journeys that accompany

[00:04:01] [SPEAKER_00]: healing or aging or chronic or cognitive or behavioral illness, even journeys that accompany

[00:04:07] [SPEAKER_00]: celebrating the memory of lost loved one. And so as I continue to reflect on that and started

[00:04:13] [SPEAKER_00]: developing this tool, the Keropolis initially, I started listening to the user base of people

[00:04:18] [SPEAKER_00]: using the tool in connection with their healing and aging journeys around their loved ones.

[00:04:22] [SPEAKER_00]: And as we continue to listen to this population, which is now in the millions,

[00:04:27] [SPEAKER_00]: we've continued to solicit a lot of wisdom and advice as far as what we can do to make

[00:04:33] [SPEAKER_00]: the Keropolis more conducive to helping them to engage their friends and their loved ones in a

[00:04:38] [SPEAKER_00]: helpful and durable journey around what they're going through. Thank you, Jay. A lot of listening.

[00:04:44] [SPEAKER_00]: You did a lot of listening. That was the fundamental part of it. And I've always been

[00:04:49] [SPEAKER_00]: a good listener. But as I continue to reflect on why our tool wasn't experiencing uptake and

[00:04:54] [SPEAKER_00]: utilization, I kept thinking that these are the people out there using the tool who have that

[00:04:59] [SPEAKER_00]: bottled up wisdom and insight in the back of their mind that is explaining why they,

[00:05:05] [SPEAKER_00]: like I went through, would love to see their loved ones move away from all the sympathies to become

[00:05:09] [SPEAKER_00]: more empathetically and helpfully engaged as a supportive network throughout that journey.

[00:05:16] [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, that's really great. And I love that this go from sympathy to empathy. We can all think

[00:05:21] [SPEAKER_01]: about a time I could think about a time where that's where I went. Like there's different

[00:05:26] [SPEAKER_01]: ways of approaching it. I always end up going to sympathy. It's a great thing to think about

[00:05:31] [SPEAKER_01]: empathy and having structure, because when you hit situations like this, we don't have structure,

[00:05:37] [SPEAKER_01]: we don't have support, and we just basically do what we know, which is not good all the time.

[00:05:43] [SPEAKER_01]: So, Jay, your platform is really helping guide people in these moments of challenge.

[00:05:47] [SPEAKER_01]: As you've built the business, you have evolved your go to market. Do you care to speak to that?

[00:05:54] [SPEAKER_00]: Absolutely. I think the big thing was the fact that when you look at these longstanding

[00:06:01] [SPEAKER_00]: conservatives, many times very deliberative and slow moving as far as innovation goes,

[00:06:07] [SPEAKER_00]: industries, specifically throughout most of healthcare, and I'm not talking about medical

[00:06:11] [SPEAKER_00]: devices and pharmaceuticals and implants, they're highly innovative and highly motivated to embrace

[00:06:17] [SPEAKER_00]: innovation. But as it relates to social innovation, I kept running into different,

[00:06:22] [SPEAKER_00]: a lot of people were interested in the tool, but they weren't willing and able to

[00:06:26] [SPEAKER_00]: step into what we finally settled on, which was a business model.

[00:06:30] [SPEAKER_00]: When you're farming new ground and trying to create a business that has a model that is compelling

[00:06:35] [SPEAKER_00]: to your customers and the people who are benefiting from the solution, it takes a lot

[00:06:41] [SPEAKER_00]: of, in our case, business models like a plate of spaghetti, a lot of loose ends, a lot of attempts

[00:06:47] [SPEAKER_00]: that fell short. It either couldn't work with our economics or the economics of our customers.

[00:06:53] [SPEAKER_00]: So we continued to explore different things and finally, probably into our eighth or ninth year,

[00:06:58] [SPEAKER_00]: settled on a business model that was conducive to the goals of everybody in the holistic equation

[00:07:04] [SPEAKER_01]: that defines our success. Man, Jay, that's powerful. It was one sentence, but that one sentence,

[00:07:11] [SPEAKER_01]: eight to nine years, and then you made that right business model shift. As those eight to nine years

[00:07:18] [SPEAKER_01]: went by, you were still building the business, right? Like help uncover that, right? You were

[00:07:23] [SPEAKER_01]: still getting wins here and there, but maybe not as fast as you would have liked.

[00:07:27] [SPEAKER_00]: Well, in so much of our target industries are just so conservative to the point where they

[00:07:32] [SPEAKER_00]: are not willing to speculate on a solution that is patient and family facing. Their most important

[00:07:41] [SPEAKER_00]: relationships to where there was any question about its longevity of either embarrassing them

[00:07:46] [SPEAKER_00]: or not serving their population in ways that they were expecting to have benefit created.

[00:07:54] [SPEAKER_00]: Part of the whole thing, I hate to say this to all the entrepreneurs out there,

[00:07:59] [SPEAKER_00]: is the fact that it is a long treading water game to be able to have that scar tissue and

[00:08:06] [SPEAKER_00]: that validation that you're going to be around and you're not going to embarrass your customers

[00:08:10] [SPEAKER_00]: with their populations. And that truly is a 10 or 15 year equation in order to be taken seriously by

[00:08:18] [SPEAKER_00]: world-class organizations who don't take their brands or their clients lightly.

[00:08:23] [SPEAKER_01]: Love that. I'm reminded of that Emmett Smith quote, when you get knocked down, you look up,

[00:08:28] [SPEAKER_01]: you get up and you never give up and you keep going and you keep going. And that's what you've

[00:08:33] [SPEAKER_01]: done, Jay. And so we've turned a corner on the business model, on the business, and you've got

[00:08:39] [SPEAKER_01]: some success. In particular, we reconnected because I had the chance to see a press release

[00:08:45] [SPEAKER_01]: on some of your wins. Do you care to comment on that?

[00:08:49] [SPEAKER_00]: I would. Thank you. Yes. And so probably the most interesting facet of the value-add of our tool

[00:08:55] [SPEAKER_00]: that should have occurred to me from my roots as a CFO, but it just really didn't until

[00:09:00] [SPEAKER_00]: we had been introduced by one of our customers to one of their business partners who does not

[00:09:07] [SPEAKER_00]: provide anything in the entire realm of care, health care, elder care, hospice care, nothing

[00:09:12] [SPEAKER_00]: like that. It was actually an advisory firm that provides consulting services generally around IT

[00:09:18] [SPEAKER_00]: and the like, but they were interested in using our tool because one of their employees' children

[00:09:24] [SPEAKER_00]: had developed cancer and they had learned about our tool from one of their executives who'd been

[00:09:30] [SPEAKER_00]: using the tool with another branch of his circle of friends. And they approached us and said,

[00:09:35] [SPEAKER_00]: we'd like to offer this as an employee benefit. And initially I was thinking, why would that,

[00:09:41] [SPEAKER_00]: if you're not providing any level of care, why would that be compelling to you? And they

[00:09:45] [SPEAKER_00]: proceeded to explain to me the concept of building a high-performance workplace, building

[00:09:50] [SPEAKER_00]: workplace culture, empowering the whole person of employees as they navigate journeys that

[00:09:56] [SPEAKER_00]: honestly are journeys that are not from the faint of heart. When you learn out of left field

[00:10:01] [SPEAKER_00]: that a loved one has been seriously injured or a difficult diagnosis, the big wet ceiling comes

[00:10:07] [SPEAKER_00]: right down on your head and all the uncertainty as you anticipate refining the diagnosis and

[00:10:13] [SPEAKER_00]: learning about the recommended course of action can be sometimes weeks in the making. And the

[00:10:20] [SPEAKER_00]: uncertainty that's on that employee's shoulders as they navigate all that uncertainty, not to mention

[00:10:25] [SPEAKER_00]: all the ins and outs of appointments and therapies and regimens and things that are

[00:10:30] [SPEAKER_00]: just beyond challenging, especially with all the uncertainty of that diagnosis or injury

[00:10:35] [SPEAKER_00]: couples into the fact that this tool has now become a world-class employee benefit

[00:10:40] [SPEAKER_00]: and we're in the process of going that direction.

[00:10:42] [SPEAKER_01]: That's awesome. So really it was this chance conversation that really uncoupled this idea that

[00:10:53] [SPEAKER_01]: the care providers were the ones that were going to be the ones to use it and see the value.

[00:10:59] [SPEAKER_01]: And in fact, that wasn't like that conversation helped you separate that idea, that assumption.

[00:11:05] [SPEAKER_00]: I've never been the sharpest tack in the box, but eventually I get things.

[00:11:09] [SPEAKER_00]: And this was laid out to me so clearly and so smoothly by this executive as far as her talking

[00:11:16] [SPEAKER_00]: about what her journey was in trying to be effective as a supporter and someone that

[00:11:22] [SPEAKER_00]: navigated not only meals and errands, but pet care and lawn care and respite and things that are so

[00:11:27] [SPEAKER_00]: critical to empowering caregivers to give them quality of life.

[00:11:31] [SPEAKER_00]: Caregivers, they fight the good fight, but in reality, their appetite suffers,

[00:11:35] [SPEAKER_00]: their sleep quality, their anxiety levels, their ability to be engaged at work.

[00:11:40] [SPEAKER_00]: All these tentacles of the caregiving equation are so brutal in the lives of most employers.

[00:11:46] [SPEAKER_00]: Back in my days as a CFO, communicating to our workforce how we valued work-life balance

[00:11:51] [SPEAKER_00]: was little more than a poster on the break room wall.

[00:11:54] [SPEAKER_00]: If you remember that poster of the monkey hanging from the hook and

[00:11:57] [SPEAKER_00]: underneath the caption said, hang in there.

[00:12:00] [SPEAKER_00]: That was the motivation back then.

[00:12:03] [SPEAKER_01]: It changed a lot since then, thankfully.

[00:12:06] [SPEAKER_01]: Thank God. Thank God. And thanks to platforms like yours, Jay, and the entrepreneur persistence

[00:12:13] [SPEAKER_01]: like leaders like you, these types of tools are available.

[00:12:17] [SPEAKER_01]: And so really thinking about as you've built the company,

[00:12:21] [SPEAKER_01]: what's been one of the big setbacks that you had that's made you guys even stronger?

[00:12:26] [SPEAKER_00]: Well, the biggest setback clearly was the longevity that we needed to develop in order

[00:12:31] [SPEAKER_00]: to be taken seriously.

[00:12:32] [SPEAKER_00]: And so much of the time, that's just a time building exercise.

[00:12:36] [SPEAKER_00]: But I think the really big thing was having the sophistication to be able to quantify and

[00:12:41] [SPEAKER_00]: communicate the value out of our tool to our customers.

[00:12:44] [SPEAKER_00]: And I know this sounds ridiculous as I say it as a former CFO, but when you're out there

[00:12:50] [SPEAKER_00]: trying to build a world-class platform that is secure and scalable and robust and compelling,

[00:12:56] [SPEAKER_00]: many times quantifying its value-add is not really on the radar.

[00:13:00] [SPEAKER_00]: And at the outset, we developed a lot of customer relationships that we lost because

[00:13:05] [SPEAKER_00]: we were incapable of communicating in a quantitative way, the value-add of our tool.

[00:13:09] [SPEAKER_00]: And so that was another real learning experience that we now have as part of our routine process

[00:13:17] [SPEAKER_00]: of reporting these metrics to our customers.

[00:13:20] [SPEAKER_00]: But it was long in the coming and it was such a low priority.

[00:13:24] [SPEAKER_00]: Then now that I look back at it, it was foolish that we didn't prioritize that early.

[00:13:28] [SPEAKER_00]: You live and you learn.

[00:13:29] [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, totally.

[00:13:30] [SPEAKER_01]: And it's a great reminder, Jay.

[00:13:31] [SPEAKER_01]: Thank you for that.

[00:13:32] [SPEAKER_01]: For everybody listening, building businesses, are you showing your ROI?

[00:13:36] [SPEAKER_01]: You got the business.

[00:13:38] [SPEAKER_01]: Now what?

[00:13:38] [SPEAKER_01]: Now you have to keep reminding them about the value you're providing.

[00:13:43] [SPEAKER_01]: Ask your customers for feedback.

[00:13:45] [SPEAKER_01]: Like Jay was saying at the beginning, listen and listen hard and get those models together

[00:13:50] [SPEAKER_01]: because at the end of the day, at the end of the year, especially people start looking

[00:13:54] [SPEAKER_01]: at things like this and you've got to keep reminding them.

[00:13:57] [SPEAKER_01]: Jay, I love this great takeaway that we can all be working on our businesses.

[00:14:02] [SPEAKER_01]: Really, you've done an incredible job.

[00:14:03] [SPEAKER_01]: Tell us who your target audience is now because they're listening.

[00:14:09] [SPEAKER_01]: And for the ones that are specifically listening that align to who buys from you,

[00:14:14] [SPEAKER_01]: let them know who they are.

[00:14:16] [SPEAKER_00]: Well, it ranges everywhere throughout the entire healthcare continuum, even getting

[00:14:20] [SPEAKER_00]: into payers, orthotic and prosthetic organizations, obviously hospice home healthcare, and then

[00:14:27] [SPEAKER_00]: non-medical home care.

[00:14:28] [SPEAKER_00]: But more recently, we've been real excited to be very robustly growing into employers

[00:14:34] [SPEAKER_00]: that want to empower that facet of their workforce that's caring for a sibling or a best friend

[00:14:40] [SPEAKER_00]: or a parent where there's really nothing in the suite of employee benefits that's going

[00:14:44] [SPEAKER_00]: to begin to get to the root of that employee's anxiety and things that truly have an impact

[00:14:49] [SPEAKER_00]: on their engagement in the workplace.

[00:14:52] [SPEAKER_01]: That's great, Jay.

[00:14:53] [SPEAKER_01]: Thank you.

[00:14:53] [SPEAKER_01]: For those of you looking for those tools and capabilities to help your employees, the lives,

[00:15:02] [SPEAKER_01]: the members, the patients, whatever stakeholder you are and however you call it, you're working

[00:15:07] [SPEAKER_01]: with people.

[00:15:08] [SPEAKER_01]: Those core people are in your sphere of influence.

[00:15:11] [SPEAKER_01]: This is a really great technology to consider.

[00:15:14] [SPEAKER_01]: Check out Jay, check out his company, and it's a great opportunity to really take a

[00:15:19] [SPEAKER_01]: look at CareFlash.

[00:15:20] [SPEAKER_01]: If people want to reach out to you, Jay, where can they reach you?

[00:15:24] [SPEAKER_00]: Easily at Jay at CareFlash.com.

[00:15:27] [SPEAKER_01]: Amazing.

[00:15:28] [SPEAKER_01]: Well, look, Jay, we're going to leave your contact information, your website and all

[00:15:33] [SPEAKER_01]: the different ways to get in touch with you and the thought leadership that you put out

[00:15:36] [SPEAKER_01]: there in the show notes.

[00:15:37] [SPEAKER_01]: So folks, take advantage of this information and take action because now is the time to

[00:15:43] [SPEAKER_01]: make progress.

[00:15:45] [SPEAKER_01]: Jay, we appreciate you joining us on Founder Stories and look forward to catching you soon.

[00:15:49] [SPEAKER_00]: Fantastic.

[00:15:50] [SPEAKER_00]: Thanks, Saul.

[00:15:50] [SPEAKER_00]: Good to see you.

[00:15:51] [SPEAKER_01]: Likewise.