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

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

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

In his webinar, Phillips covered:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“In my experience, most startup founders that learn from their mistakes end up succeeding. It may not be a multi-billion-dollar success, but they end up building something of real value and in that sense succeeding,” he says. 

Breakstone presented a keynote speech at fnSummit 2021, in which he’ll detail seven lessons for founders. He’ll tell personal stories and offer advice on topics such as the importance of choosing the right co-founders, knowing market size, building your team and pushing for speed to market.

“As a founder, you’re selling the future. You're selling a vision.” - @MichaBreakstone
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Create perceived momentum

According to Breakstone, being the fastest at getting a product to market is critical, but that’s just the start. A company must also create the sense that they’re moving even quicker than they are, a concept he calls “perceived momentum.”

“As a founder, you’re selling the future. You’re selling a vision. Your company is getting a valuation of $50 million before you have earned a cent because people believe that you understand something about the future that they don’t yet, and that you can get them there,” he explains. Perceived momentum can be generated by hiring people or appointing board members who are stars in their field. “If you have 10 people on your development team and four are out of Google, you’re already looking bigger than you are,” he says. Breakstone also suggests that founders publish thought pieces that position themselves as leaders and that they invest in a compelling design language. 

“Another trick to build momentum is to space out your company announcements. If you have made five advancements quickly, announce them over a few weeks, so that you create the sense that you are continuously moving forward,” he suggests.

However, Breakstone cautions not to create a false sense of reality. Honesty and authenticity are key. “You don’t have to have all the answers. You just have to convey the confidence that you are moving quickly to find the right answers,” he says.

“You're selling a dream, so it better be a dream that is worthwhile. I think it's important to be motivated from a deep place. If it's only for money, it's going to be hard to maintain over time.” - @MichaBreakstone
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Believe in your mission

Creating a buzz only works if you believe in what you are creating. He explains: “You’re selling a dream, so it better be a dream that is worthwhile. I think it’s important to be motivated from a deep place. If it’s only for money, it’s going to be hard to maintain over time.”

Breakstone will share some of his own experiences with finding a sense of mission, detailing how the objectives of a company may change over time, but the mission and vision can be maintained, anchoring decisions in deeply considered company values.

”At the end of the day, getting employees, investors, and customers to follow you is so much easier if (a) you have a deep and compelling vision of the world, and (b) you actually believe in it.”

“You can scare people into working hard. You can try to ‘buy’ people into working hard, but one thing you can’t do is buy their hearts and souls.” - @MichaBreakstone
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Put people before product

Of all the lessons he presents, Breakstone is most passionate about the need to treat people – the team, clients and co-founders — with respect. Aside from it being the right thing to do, he also adds that he believes it is a predictor of success. 

“I’ve worked with over 200 companies in the last three years, and I can tell you that people who take care of others succeed more than those who don’t.” 

He cites a Google study that found that “psychological safety,” a state in which people feel comfortable being vulnerable and empowering others, was the number one predictor of a successful team. 

“You can scare people into working hard. You can try to ‘buy’ people into working hard, but one thing you can’t do is buy their hearts and souls. The only way to truly motivate them is by treating them well, treating them as partners in your journey.” 

Check out our video from the event and see if you qualify for membership to attend upcoming Founders Network events.

fnSummit, taking place from October 13-15, 2021, is an annual event where founders, investors and partners come together to explore the theme of growth. Located in a beautiful resort in California’s Carmel Valley, the event offer participants a chance to network, share ideas and enjoy a variety of recreational and team-building activities.

According to experts, about 90% of startups end in failure. In many cases, entrepreneurs simply run out of money and are forced to quit. However, according to consultant and coach Holly Woods, there is a deeper reason for insolvency: Founders lack clarity about what matters to them and what they want to achieve. For several decades, Woods has been helping them find their purpose, which, in turn, leads to profit and success. “When you are focused on why you got into a product or niche, you can make decisions that result in more optimized strategies,” says Woods.

Having spent 35 years in human and organizational development as well as 30 years building and scaling businesses, Holly Woods, Phd is well poised to help clients discern their business intentions. She is the founder of The Emergence Institute, which guides visionaries, innovators and changemakers to get deep clarity about purpose and build products and business rooted in it. An Integral Master Coach, Purpose Guide, Professional Mediator and Facilitator, Master Energy Practitioner, and a Stages of Consciousness developmental practitioner, she is also the author of The Golden Thread: Where to Find Purpose in the Stages of Your Life (2020).

“When you are focused on why you got into a product or niche, you can make decisions that result in more optimized strategies.” - @hollykwoods
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At an upcoming Founders Network event, Woods will demonstrate how more precise clarity about purpose helps you create products that represent the true talents you bring to the world, enables you to stay inspired for the long-haul and more easily course correct, all while guiding your next steps toward profit.

To learn more about persevering through challenges, see if you qualify for membership and check out the webinar from August 12.

Register at Founders Network and check if you qualify for full membership to: 

• Explore the Golden Thread that led you to your product/ innovation and business
• Become newly inspired about the WHY behind your product/ innovation
• Gain clarity, focus and flow to guide your next steps
• Reap the benefits of your precise purpose for yourself, your business and the world

For those doubting their ability to make a success of their current projects, Woods initiates a process of rediscovery. “Once founders reclaim their purpose and get reenergized, they can truly commit to their startup and persevere through any challenges that come up,” she explains. 

“Once founders reclaim their purpose and get reenergized, they can truly commit to their startup and persevere through any challenges that come up.” - @hollykwoods
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Using your Origin Story to Explore the Golden Thread of Purpose

Many of us live unintentional lives and are unaware that our impulses and the things that excite us are rooted in our origin stories. Woods helps people “unpack who they are” and look through their personal history to find the common themes and motivations. “The golden thread is really the thread of purpose as it weaves itself through your life and helps create clarity and focus about what would be your next best step.” Many people set out on a path because it seems like the most viable alternative for them, but don’t know why. Woods believes that becoming conscious about one’s deeper intentions will help refine efforts. For entrepreneurs, this knowledge helps them to best market their product or service and to become aware of the next step to take for the company’s growth.

Staying in Positive Motion with the Purpose Flywheel

Coined in the book Good to Great by Jim Collins, the term ‘flywheel effect’ refers to the concept that successful enterprises are characterized by a process that resembles pushing a flywheel, a mechanism once used in large machinery to keep them going. Companies operate successfully by creating systems that enhance stability, resilience and momentum, even in volatile growth phases.

“The golden thread is really the thread of purpose as it weaves itself through your life and helps create clarity and focus about what would be your next best step.” - @hollykwoods
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According to Woods, the “perpetual motion” mechanism suggested by a flywheel also mimics the notion of the evolutionary impulse to improve as a means of filling the ever-expanding universe. That requires iteration, which requires feedback. In our own lives, we must continuously experiment, fail and receive feedback from the system in order to learn – a process that Woods knows well from working with clients.

Inspired by her experiences setting up “virtuous cycles” for her clients, she created the Purpose Flywheel, “a continuous series of learning loops” that enable startup founders and others to find clarity about their direction and keep experimenting toward success.   

Taking the Next Big Step Amid Doubt

When you have created something successful, the next step can feel daunting. Woods recalls working with a serial entrepreneur who had successfully built a $500M environmental cleanup company. He was about to exit and had no idea what to do next. During his work with Woods, he became aware of his next desired direction, an area in which he had been volunteering his services, but he had a crisis of confidence about his right to turn a passion project into a business. After working through those doubts and getting precise clarity about his purpose, he immediately started building his new venture, this time in an arena that reflected his purpose. 

“It is difficult to move forward in things that matter most, to reveal ourselves to the world, so we choose something that feels easier.” - @hollykwoods
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According to Woods, “It is difficult to move forward in things that matter most, to reveal ourselves to the world, so we choose something that feels easier.”  But, she adds, it is only when we are in alignment with our purpose that true innovation can happen.

In that spirit, she has created the Purpose LaunchLab Incubator for innovators and founders who want to get more clarity about their purpose and product.  By approaching new initiatives this way, many entrepreneurs are finding they can improve efficiency and profit, leading to more startup success stories.

To learn more about persevering through challenges, see if you qualify for membership and check out the webinar from August 12.

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One of the first big hires for Bandwagon was the software engineer. Because Hughes is not a technical founder, he knew he’d need outside guidance, but he separated the hiring process into two parts. First was aptitude—”from a technical standpoint, let’s make sure the person can do their job,” but the second part was not whether the candidate would be a good fit, but rather if they would provide an additive quality to the team. “So we don’t look for culture fit. We look for folks who are going to improve the culture of our organization.”

“We don’t look for culture fit. We look for folks who are going to improve the culture of our organization.” - @OneBandwagonFan
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One of the biggest aspects of hiring that can hold budding startups back is preconceived notions about compensation. “Remember that at the end of the day you are building this company from scratch and so you don’t have to use some boring compensation plan.” Hughes recommends adopting an approach of employing multiple flexible terms, including:

• Deferred compensation
• Base salary plus bonus
• Commission
• Equity

As long as you are in talks with a candidate open to flexible terms, the more options you offer, the higher your likelihood of bringing on the person that you truly desire for that role. During the event, Hughes will go through the most effective compensation tactics to help land the hires of your dreams.

When it comes to the hiring process, Hughes believes in patience, with an eye towards long-term possibilities. “Timing is everything, especially when it comes to building out your team,” Hughes explains, “and you never know when the career arc of your ideal candidate, and the needs and resources of your own company will be matched up. So when you find an amazing person that you’d love to work with always stay in touch with them, reach out to them, consider adding them to your investor update list, or your stakeholder list so you can continue to massage and build that relationship because you never know when the timing is going to work out.”

“Remember that at the end of the day you are building this company from scratch and so you don’t have to use some boring compensation plan.” - @OneBandwagonFan
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While this might sound like straightforward networking, for Hughes this is not so much about increasing the overall size of the network, but rather the depth of specific relationships with people that you’d like to see in very key roles in the future.

Hughes credits his “always be courting” philosophy as critical to the success of hiring the company’s current COO, Bärí Williams. Hughes had become aware of her almost from the same time as founding Bandwagon in 2016. And while he had added her to a list of people he’d dream of working with, when he met her in 2017, he knew better than to make that ask, feeling that he could not offer any sort of comparable salary.

What Hughes did do was stay in touch, keeping connected with Williams on Twitter and adding her to investor updates. In the end, Williams ended up reaching out to Hughes about a potential role at Bandwagon.

In the pre-seed and seed stages capital is always going to be limited. It can feel like a Catch-22 when it’s necessary to have a winning team to show your company’s value in order to raise that capital, while having so many restraints on building the initial team.

“When you find an amazing person that you’d love to work with always reach out to them, consider adding them to your investor or your stakeholder list so you can continue to massage and build that relationship.” - @OneBandwagonFan
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At the upcoming Founders Network event, Hughes will go into depth on all the ways in which a startup can build the team they need with limited resources. Join Harold Hughes at Founders Network for actionable takeaways on all aspects of hiring including:

• Creating a process and sticking with it
• Being creative with compensation packages and plans
• Always be courting

If you’re an early stage founder you won’t want to miss this critical advice that will show you how to assemble the dream team you need to progress. Register now or request an invite to see if you qualify for membership.

Entrepreneurship is hard and littered with failures. So why do it? Jason Collier, serial founder most recently of Scale Computing, recounts lessons learned from the dot-com crash and gives no-BS advice on the pitfalls of fundraising, learning to adapt, and what really matters in running a startup.  

Register for Jason’s personal playbook and see if you qualify for membership to Founders Network and get actionable insights on: 

• Bouncing Back from Failure
• Understanding Deal Terms
• Keeping Your Equity
• Learning to Adapt
• Focusing on People

Starting a company is a long journey — rife with pitfalls, emotional ups-and-downs and with a high rate of failure. So why choose entrepreneurship, anyway? 

It’s an excellent question — and one that serial entrepreneur and technologist Jason Collier is uniquely well-poised to address. Collier’s experience as a founder dates back to the dot-com boom, where he first co-founded an anti-spam company, Corvigo, that sold for $43.5 million. More recently, he co-founded Scale Computing, a pioneer in hyperconvergence infrastructure, where he also served as CTO. 

“But it wasn’t all a cakewalk,” says Jason. Early failures, or not-so-pleasant surprises, steered the course for his highly productive career in startups. 

“You can sit there and plan all you want, but you need the ability to adapt to changing environments.” - @bocanuts
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Take Radiate, an early Internet advertising firm where he led operations. The company took $5 million from a venture capital firm at a time when “liquidation preferences were ridiculous,” Jason recalls. That was near the apex of the dot-com craze, but Radiate ultimately grew to a $20 million run rate, and filed to go public. 

To learn more about starting a company, see if you qualify for membership and check out the global keynote from February 15.

At a meeting with investment bankers around the time of Radiate’s planned IPO, Jason recalls that he and peers were told that their equity was worth $150 million each. But then the market crashed. The IPO was scrapped and Radiate sold for relative peanuts. Jason walked away with a whopping $652.17.

Therein lies a valuable piece of advice: “Planning is important, but you have to be able to adapt,” Jason says. “You can sit there and plan all you want, but you need the ability to adapt to changing environments. I think COVID has done nothing but prove that right.” 

Although failure is rarely fun at the time it happens, successful entrepreneurs will learn to embrace it.

“Good judgment comes from experience, and experience comes from poor judgment. When you're an entrepreneur and doing a startup, learn from those bad experiences and you’ll have better judgment next time.” - @bocanuts
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“One of my favorite quotes is that good judgment comes from experience, and experience comes from poor judgment,” Jason adds. “When you’re an entrepreneur and doing a startup, learn from those bad experiences and you’ll have better judgment next time.”

In Scale Computing, it was a different story. The company accumulated a number of customers before raising an A round, and that had the effect of popping up the valuation, and making it easier for the founding team to hang on to equity. 

“What that meant was: After our A round, the founders of the company still owned 80% of it. That’s pretty much unheard of when it comes to venture funding,” he says. “We’ve taken significantly less money than a lot of people typically take in startups. Why? Because we’ve been there. Scale Computing’s A round was $5.5 million, $2 million of which was in grants, and it’s raised $110 million in total smaller slivers of equity,” he says. Scale Computing has about 6000 customers today. 

“You can have the greatest idea since sliced bread, but if you start pitching VCs before you have a customer or before you’ve identified how important that market is, you’re going to get raked over the coals by any venture capitalist,” Jason adds. “What they want to see is an air of profitability.”

While startup life can often be fast-paced, founders should also plan for things  to take longer than they expect — sometimes much longer. 

“No matter what timeline you put on anything, it is always going to take three times longer than you actually think it will.” - @bocanuts
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Jason calls this the F:3 rule — coined by his wife, Freda. This rule of thumb dictates that no matter what you’re expecting in either business or life, plan for it to take three times longer than you initially expected. 

“No matter what timeline you put on anything, it is always going to take three times longer than you actually think it will. You think you’re going to IPO, sell the company — whatever time horizon you’ve got, go ahead and multiply that by three.” 

In terms of the actual work of running a business, if there’s one overriding piece of wisdom that experienced entrepreneurs like Jason will point to, it’s to focus on people. The people are your best assets, and successful founders should never have that thought far from their minds. 

“The people are the company. It’s a CEO’s job to maintain a work environment that keeps people coming back every morning, and all the other stuff is just BS.” - @bocanuts
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“So many people can get hung up on their products, or branding, sales, marketing and those things. But understand that it’s the people that make it happen, and it’s your job to create a work environment that basically treats people in a phenomenal way,” he says. “It’s a CEO’s job to maintain a work environment that keeps people coming back every morning, and all the other stuff is just BS in my opinion. The people are the company.” 

To learn more about starting a company, see if you qualify for membership and check out the global keynote from February 15.