For this episode of The VentureFizz Podcast, I interviewed Ed Park, Co-Founder and CEO of Devoted Health.

Ed and his brother Todd Park have a special bond, and their great relationship has carried over into the world of entrepreneurship. Ed joined his brother and Jonathan Bush in the very early days of building athenahealth, one of the anchor companies in the Boston tech scene which is publicly traded on the NASDAQ.

Ed and Todd’s next company is called Devoted Health, and they are looking to fix healthcare for seniors.

In this episode of our podcast, we cover:

• The full background story of athenahealth, and how the HMO revolution of the late 90’s created the perfect storm to solve the administrative headaches for doctors
• How their focus kept them on a path which ultimately resulted in the top IPO of 2007
• The details on Devoted Health, and how they are looking to make healthcare easier, more affordable, and a whole lot more caring
• How they have built a world-class leadership team, which includes the person who invented the term “data science”
• Plus, a lot more!

To make sure you receive future episodes, please subscribe to us on iTunes, Google Play, or Soundcloud. If you enjoyed our show, please consider writing us a 5-star review—it will definitely help us get the word out there!

I love this graphic.

I’m not sure who created it, but I find it incredibly simple and motivating.  

I remembered these circles the other night when I was having dinner with an author friend who was telling me about how he comes up with his ideas and meets his deadlines. “Fear,” he responded. It sparked a good conversation about putting ourselves in uncomfortable situations, allowing fear to motivate potential success. I went home that night inspired to tackle something I’d been contemplating for a while, but just needed a swift kick in the butt to get it started.

Fear has always been a part of the human experience. Back when we were being chased around by predators and living in physically difficult times, we focused on survival. That fear to stay alive drove us to protect ourselves. In today’s world, our predators come in different forms, and our fear has taken a different shape. However, regardless of what scares the heck out of us, fear continues to motivate us to move forward. The things that scare us may have evolved, but change, uncertainty, and the unfamiliar can sometimes be just as frightening as a lion hot on our heels.

And while some fear is warranted and can serve to protect us, there’s a real downside if we embrace it too tightly.  When we allow the fear to take priority, we dismiss all the amazing stuff that that fear could potentially fuel. Life is an open door. You can allow fear to drive you to push the door shut...or you can open the door, embrace the unknown, and allow yourself to explore the opportunities. Need a little more motivation to take a deep breath and launch out of your comfort zone? Consider the following:

FEAR CAN LEAD TO OPPORTUNITY

When you have a private moment and you think about your place in the world, do you want to identify as someone who runs from fear, or as someone who tackles it straight on? If you opt for the latter, it doesn’t mean you are nervous and sweating as you do it; that just makes you human. It does, however, mean you are making a choice to be open to what’s possible.

FEAR CAN LEAD TO PERSONAL GROWTH

Ok, so maybe your job is ok enough, or that girl you’ve been dating is just fine.  You know what to expect in these situations, and that comfort is tolerable and predictable, even if you don’t find it inspiring. For whatever reason, that familiarity brings comfort...and we humans tend to like that. A little bit of that is just fine. However, if we live in this zone for too long, we stagnate our learning. The world is a dynamic, constantly changing place; do you want to remain static while the world changes around you? It doesn’t matter what it is you choose to do; just start small by choosing something that scares you, embrace the discomfort, and give it a try. Then evaluate how empowered you feel when you’ve accomplished it.

FEAR CAN CAUSE US TO FAIL, AND THAT’S COOL TOO

I trend pretty high on the risk index.  When I am about to tackle something that scares me, I often motivate myself by thinking, “what is the worst thing that can happen?”  If I can imagine those worst case scenarios, I can edit my actions to avoid or plan for them and radically eradicate much of the fear before I’ve ever started. We all experience vulnerability, and the concern that if we take the risk it might fail.  And you might. However, whether it’s a success or a fail, you are guaranteed to end up somewhere new. Everyone benefits from a little new in their lives from time to time.

FEAR CAN BECOME OUR BFF 

Even the most organized and planful among us cannot predict everything in life. There is no real certainty, and if we spend our time constantly trying to avoid it, we’ll never be completely successful.  Rather than spend your time stressing out about whether or not you can keep everything in your life from changing, embrace the notion that your fears can better help you navigate the inevitable ups and downs of life.

FEAR CAN FORCE YOU TO TAP INTO YOUR INNER BADASS 

Stop for a moment and remember back to the times you were most proud.  Or the time where you grew the most. I’ll bet that either situation came from a time where you were filled with fear about whether or not you could accomplish that thing.  And you did. See how that works? When you force yourself to consider your life, you likely aren’t going to remember the hours spent at your desk or the routine things you did that filled your days. You’ll cherish the memories of the risks you took - things like that new job, falling in love, moving to a new city. You’ll also remember when some of those things didn’t work, and you face planted. But you always got back up and tried again. When we survive those bumps along the journey, we don’t just learn. We emerge as a stronger person. Who doesn’t love that?

Fear can prevent us from moving forward, or it can serve as a motivator. When we tackle it head on, regardless of how scary it might be at the start, you will be forced to acknowledge your real capabilities.  Push yourself to embrace your fears and truly great things that can happen when you do.

Picture this. You’ve rolled out your transformation to your team(s), and even though there was some initial skepticism, most people got on board (or at a minimum have agreed to execute the steps/go through the motions). Things are chugging along, but suddenly, things change. You’ve missed a key deadline. There’s friction between a few of the team members. A senior leader is frustrated. What do you do?

First, let’s take a step back and breathe. This is common when leading a team through any business process change and things typically get at least a little worse before they get better. If the change is your brainchild, it can be especially concerning for your survival at your workplace. I’ve been there, and I’ve lived to tell the tale. Here are some steps that have worked for me.

Do a personal retrospective

I like to do a personal retrospective and write it all down. Retrospectives are a chance to look back, take stock of what happened, and distill action items. When doing a personal retrospective, I prefer to do this literally on paper and not digital format, as it’s tangible, more private, and maybe you can crumple or burn it later for a little catharsis!  Whatever method you prefer, assess what happened when you thought of your new process, identify your established goals, and detail what happened once you rolled it out. What were the reactions (who said what, what skeptical comments were said)? What went well? What could have been done better? Were there noticeable successes to be celebrated?

Document the current complaints/concerns you’ve heard and clarify if they’re issues that will be resolved by staying the course or if changes should be made. If changes are required, identify what changes can be put into motion. An effective way to do that is to use systems thinking to analyze how work has flowed through your new process. Were there gaps? Was work waiting?  Was there poor/unclear/no communication? Look for AntiPatterns, or bad responses, to a recurring problem that’s ineffective.  

You should “leave” this retrospective armed with some specific tactical steps to change and improve the process.  

Solicit feedback from friendlies

As you lead change through an organization, it’s important to develop a bunch of early adopters, or as I like to call them “friendlies.” These are stakeholders at any level in the organization who like your ideas and adopt them early. Sit down with some of these friendlies, do a similar retrospective with just them, but let them do the majority of the talking. Be an active listener.  You should be in a position of trust with these folks so simple questions like, “Where did I go wrong?” might be a good starting point, but you might need to probe a bit. Think about what you identified in your solo retrospective. Ask about those items and find out if they think you were unclear on some of the finer details. These meetings should (hopefully) provide some additional tactical changes to make to the overall process.

Call a meeting with the team

Ok, you should have insights about what went wrong and now it’s time to discuss it with everyone. It’s important for your credibility as a leader to not have your head in the sand about problems. It’s critical that you address them with transparency. You should walk into this meeting like a lawyer about to cross-examine in that you should be able to predict what they are going to say.

(Re)state the vision:

• If you haven’t yet messaged what you’re attempting and why (you should have when you rolled out – if you read my previous blog post, you’d have known this – shameless plug).  

Remind them that challenges are part of the process:

• Bumps in the road are normal. It’s common for big changes to initially slow productivity down before it improves, but don’t downplay the issues. Again it’s crucial that the team sees you as accountable and trustworthy.

• If you’re looking for an example to reference about how and why it’s normal for teams to struggle initially, you can reference Tuckman’s stages of group development. The group may have already been in existence – but the way they are doing work now has changed, for that reason, this model becomes very applicable.

Show you’re taking action:

• Document what went well, what didn’t, and create action items from this list.

• Identify and celebrate the wins. It, of course, can be easy to overlook the positives if the overall sentiment is negative.

Workshop the adjustments

If you’ve distilled any adjustments that can be made, propose them with the group. Use vocabulary like “adjustments” or “tweaks.” it’s important to set the paradigm that the changes needed are small and attainable and that we’re adapting and learning. Emphasize that learning itself is a positive outcome. When you’re meeting with the entire team, make sure to record your notes in a shared digital format like Confluence so they can visually see the action items and how the team is trending against it.

Give it time, but set a date to do a retrospective on the changes made. I suggest giving it at least two months. This will further demonstrate that as a leader you are listening and want to receive feedback and adapt. A great way to collect feedback and allow people to comment freely, anonymously, and over time is to use a retrospective starfish.

Here’s how they work:

• You use either a dry erase board or a flip chart and basically draw a pie chart with five equal sections.  

• Label the sections with “Stop”, “Start”, “More”, “Less”, “Keep” – this allows people to put a sticky in the area that matches their thoughts (i.e. Stop discussing Work in Progress, Keep removing our blockers, etc.)

And if all else fails, learn

Understand that changing the way people do work can be difficult. There’s always the chance that your transformation may outright fail and you may be forced to abandon it. I’ve experienced it myself and learned from it, specifically the importance of having those friendlies I mentioned earlier. In a previous job, I had transformed a Systems Engineering team’s workflow which was essentially “whoever screams the loudest wins” to Agile with Scrum. When problems hit, I didn’t have feedback and thought I knew how to fix it. I tried adjusting our new workflow, but my adjustments were not resonating with all of the engineers nor with some of my stakeholders. I ran out of time and was forced to abandon the transformation altogether.

But I learned.

It’s important to fail the right way. To do that you must have a mindset of, “I either succeed or I learn.” But if you’re going to learn, make sure you’re actively learning. Pinpoint what the reasons were that caused the transformation to fail. Did you not address a stakeholder? Is there a cultural nonfit? Is there a way forward with that team?

However it plays out, you will level up your grit by leading change in an organization. Change can only happen if you build the trust of your team and continue to listen, learn, and adapt. If you can be this kind of leader, success is bound to find you no matter how many “lessons learned” happens along the way.

Christian Ollenborger is a Sr. Project Manager for the Information Technology organization at Carbon Black.

For this episode of The VentureFizz Podcast, I interviewed Stefania Mallett, Co-Founder and CEO of ezCater.

Stefania is a serial entrepreneur. One of her previous companies was acquired and the deal had a 14X return for its investors. Her current company, ezCater, has raised almost $170M in funding and is focused on becoming the dominant player for a $100B industry worldwide.

We first covered ezCater on VentureFizz back in 2014. In the article, she was quoted by saying that they are going to be a billion-dollar company. Well, it’s now four years later and in our podcast, she shares the details on where they are at in terms of achieving that very goal. Let’s just say… it’s trending in the right direction.

In this episode of our podcast, we cover:

• What led her down the path of entrepreneurship and starting companies
• The aha moment behind starting ezCater and the early days of bootstrapping the business
• So much great advice for not only building companies but also building a successful marketplace
• Her thoughts on hiring, and how they have maintained a strong culture at scale with over 450 employees
• Specific recommendations on how to become a leader
• Plus, a lot more!

To make sure you receive future episodes, please subscribe to us on iTunes, Google Play, or Soundcloud. If you enjoyed our show, please consider writing us a 5-star review—it will definitely help us get the word out there!

I’ve been extraordinarily fortunate to curate a group of people in my work life whose advice, ideas, and counsel I have come to rely on to keep me pointed in the right direction. Among them are colleagues, peers and cross-functional partners; all of whom attach tremendous value to any impact I might add. In short, regardless of how good I might be, these people are my “people,” and I am far better at my job because of my relationship with them.

As we know, sometimes people come into our lives in the most odd and unexpected of ways. However, these crucial work relationships aren’t the stuff of happenstance.  They grow over time, built on a foundation of trust, respect and just plain experiencing things together. While you may or may not have a trusted group of your own, you’ll be hard pressed to find any strong leader who doesn’t have an indispensable team of their own. Why? The benefits are huge. From sharing insights and perspectives on how to reach your goals, to helping to decipher what’s getting in your way, these people know us. And if you choose wisely, these people aren’t afraid to hold the mirror up to us and help us address our challenges head-on. They also are the crew that will cheer you on as you achieve the wins along the way.

Eager to establish your own team of trusted advisors?  Look for these three characteristics as you find your people...and aim to operate similarly to add value to them.

THEY GIVE OF THEMSELVES

When we deeply connect with someone, it’s largely built on mutual support and respect. Search for people who are generous with their time and ideas, and commit to reciprocating.  These charitable people won’t just sit by and listen; they are the people who you can let your guard down with. Through the strength of a trusting relationship, you dare each other to expand your mindsets and possibilities.

THEY PROVIDE SAFETY IN CANDOR 

Seek out people who are courageously authentic. You can count on them to share the good, the bad and the ugly with you, and you can do the same with them. You allow yourselves to be vulnerable with each other, and in doing so, create an environment where addressing the truth paves a positive path forward.

THEY HOLD YOU ACCOUNTABLE 

Life, procrastination, competing priorities...there are a host of things that can get in our way on the path to accomplishing our goals. You might be self-motivated, but finding someone who can aid you in following through on your commitments is a gift.  Whether it’s providing you with tough love or cheering you on through the tough bits, these people help us achieve true change.

Whether it’s in our personal or professional lives, we all have a perspective on the benefit that comes with these vital relationships in our lives.  Regardless of how talented we might be, enlisting the advice and perspectives from the people we truly trust is a critical success factor in nurturing our careers.

Christina Luconi is Chief People Officer for Rapid7. Follow her on Twitter: @peopleinnovator

For this episode of our podcast, I interviewed Dave Balter, Co-Founder & CEO of Flipside Crypto.

Dave is a serial entrepreneur having founded two companies in the Boston tech scene that have been acquired. BzzAgent was acquired by dunnhumby and then, Smarterer was acquired by Pluralsight, a company that went public back in May of this year and is aggressively growing their team in Boston.

His current company, Flipside Crypto, is a venture backed startup that is providing indexes and investment vehicles for cryptocurrencies.

Not only has Dave’s impact been felt as an entrepreneur, but he is also an investor and advocate for the Boston tech scene.

In this episode of our podcast, we cover:

• The legendary Dave Balter tech prom - yes that did happen
• The details behind BzzAgent, plus a fun story involving Jason Calacanis
• Smarterer’s pivot that led to an acquisition
• A simple description on cryptocurrency and blockchain, plus what Flipside Crypto is up to and how they are helping people build a diversified portfolio
• How he got into angel investing, including being one of the first investors at Runkeeper
• Plus, a lot more.

To make sure you receive future episodes, please subscribe to us on iTunes, Google Play, or Soundcloud. If you enjoyed our show, please consider writing us a 5-star review—it will definitely help us get the word out there!

Keith Cline is the Founder of VentureFizz. Follow him on Twitter: @kcline6.

When I was a child, I used to watch reruns of Get Smart. My brother and I spent hours talking into our sneakers, trying to replicate Maxwell Smart’s iconic shoe phone. I recently saw an image of this and was struck by how insanely outdated - and wrong - the technology was. Back in the mid-1960’s when the show ran, no one could predict the transformative role communications would play in the internet age. I mean, seriously, the creators of that show’s version of the now ubiquitous iPhone was a shoe with a rotary dial.

Both our personal and business lives are dramatically enhanced with the evolution of digital communication. Rather than waiting for a fax to crawl through a machine, we can able to respond electronically —and at lightning speed —through an endless amount of tools. Often, this is done with our smartphones that never seem to be out of our site. It’s shaving time off and enhancing productivity for sure, but there are some downsides to this as well. We are beginning to let our human connections erode.

We certainly aren’t going to slow the pace of communication transformation, especially as AI begins to take a larger role. However, regardless of whatever progress is made - much of which we can’t even begin to dream of right now - we cannot lose our humanity and connection to one another. Below, find four ways to stay truly connected when you put down your device.

PAY ATTENTION

I’ll admit it: I’m one of those super annoying people who have my laptop open during meetings.  As hard as I try to engage and stay focused, I find it nearly impossible not to get distracted by the Slack messages, emails, texts, etc. that pile up during the course of a one-hour meeting. Intellectually, I understand it’s rude to the person hosting the meeting. I also appreciate that is how everyone is working. We’ve begun to morph into a culture of people who literally cannot listen to someone without a piece of technology right next to us. And yet look at some of our most impressive communicators.  Whether it’s President Obama or your amazing manager, we don’t pay attention because they blasted us with a tweet. We tune in because they somehow manage to capture our attention and make us feel like we are the most important person to them at that time. Now consider if those people communicated strictly through technology. Would we be as influenced? Personal interactions aren’t just a necessity for “people in charge.” It’s vital to building any relationship, making a sale, or selling a new idea. Paying attention and making those human connections are the difference between having someone listen, and actually being able to influence them.

AVOID MISCOMMUNICATION

As we have become more and more reliant on technology to communication our writing has become subject to some serious miscommunication. When we don’t supplement with human connections, we leave our messages free from tone, nuance, and physical gestures.  As a result, things can often be misinterpreted. Think about the last time you were irked because someone sent you a weird emoji or responded in what you interpreted to be a snarky way. Was it intentional, or just hard to decipher? Though small scale in nature and a quick way to send messages, when communicating lacks those other critical elements, it can downright strain personal connections.  It can also result in missed opportunities or damaged relationships.

BALANCE IS KEY

There is no doubt that digital communication can be exceptionally effective, especially if we are collaborating across offices, working remotely, etc.  It allows us to connect with our colleagues, partners, and customers in ways we wouldn’t have imagined even just a few short years ago. That said, using these tools as the default communication method puts those human connections at risk. Finding a balance between the digital and the human is incredibly important. This isn’t just a business challenge; it applies to our own lives as well. When we stop speaking and focus solely on the non-human ways of communication, we throw that delicate balance off.  

HUMANITY IS KEY TO OUR FUTURE

Regardless of the brilliant technological innovations, we will see in our future. Nothing will ever replace human connection. Whether it’s sharing a meal, grabbing a coffee or just saying hello in person to a customer you’ve been connected with numerous times on the phone, it goes a very long way in enhancing a relationship.  The analog subtleties of things like body language, eye contact, etc. can simply not be replaced by digital enhancements. Without a doubt, our lives are enhanced by technological advances, and it is making communicating with the world far more efficient than ever before. However, nothing will ever replace the solely human characteristics of integrity, trust, and empathy. Balance it all, and we will indeed have an amazing world in front of us.

Sometimes, healthcare can be a scary place. If you have a condition and need treatment, you want the best care possible, but how do you know, for instance, which of the many drugs out there is the right one for you? Of course, you should trust your doctor first and foremost, but wouldn’t it be nice if there was some way to know which treatments would statistically result in the best outcomes possible?

OM1 is a Boston-based healthcare company whose data-driven cloud platform helps healthcare providers and stakeholders compare, measure, and predict treatment outcomes either by individual or population.

Since its founding in 2015, the company has raised $36M across two rounds: a $15M Series A last April led by General Catalyst, and a $21M Series B led by Polaris Partners this May. I had the chance to speak with Founder and CEO Rich Gliklich about the company’s past and present. 

The excerpts below have been shortened for brevity.

Tell me about your background.

The first company I founded was called Outcome. It actually started as a spin-off from my research lab at Harvard where I'm a practicing surgeon, but my research background has been around understanding outcomes in healthcare. 

That company focused on trying to understand outcomes, but the problem was that it took a lot of effort to be able to bring the data together. We didn't really have the big data technologies, AI capabilities, and so on that we have today, so it was a lot more manual and a lot more effort.

But what happened after 2008 was that healthcare data started getting much more digitized and at the same time, you have all these groups that created big data capabilities and large data sets together. On top of that, my own research work was moving towards trying to measure outcomes across many, many different types of conditions. At that time, you could do it, but it was very hard to do, and it was hard to create value without what now became artificial intelligence.

My first company was acquired by a large contract research organization called Quintiles [now IQVIA]. I spent a couple years there, and then worked with General Catalyst looking at healthcare IT and big data healthcare companies, which was great and I got to see a lot of different technological capabilities. 

And then I came back to realize a few years ago that now might actually be the time where we can make the understanding of outcomes so broad and pervasive—not just restricted to simple questions that have a lot of funding behind them. That we could democratize that kind of information and make it available at scale if we can bring together and digitize healthcare data. 

The idea was that healthcare results really matter. Could we produce those results broadly? And coming to the realization that we maybe could, was enough of a beginning point to get OM1 started, because the opportunity to do that is not just a financial opportunity, but the opportunity in terms of improving human conditions—is so massive that how could you not move forward with it? And that's what led to the initial funding with General Catalyst, and subsequently Polaris.

So where do things stand with the company now?

We created a platform that consumes an enormous amount of healthcare information and processes it to be able to measure the outcomes that exist in our healthcare system today by drug, by procedure, by provider, by payer. Our AI engine enables you to predict which patients are going to have better outcomes, which are going to have worse outcomes, whether a particular drug or procedure is best for a particular patient, and so forth. 

We're delivering on both measurements and analytics from those measurements, as well as insights and predictions for stakeholders ranging from life sciences companies to practice groups and payers. 

In some of those settings, while we're not consumer-facing, we have programs like one partnership with an academic medical center where we’re delivering personalized information for decision-making, so when a doctor and patient sit down and talk about a particular orthopedic procedure, they have very personalized information on what the likely benefit and risk for that individual patient would be if they underwent that procedure or a different one. 

In other situations like in rare diseases, we are working with an association and their centers and patient groups to try to find out which patients are most likely to have an infection in the next 90 days, and is there something we can do about it. We benchmark drugs against each other so the company knows how well their drug is actually working in the real world, or a device manufacturer, or so the health system knows how well they're doing, how well they're treating multiple sclerosis versus their peers and other parts of the country based on the outcomes. It's pretty exciting stuff.

Walk me through the workflow. If I went into the doctor for a procedure, where would OM1 come in?

All we have to do is consume the medical data. The system will basically take your medical record information or just medical record information—it doesn't have to be identified—and it goes to a model and the results of that model generate a score for an individual. The higher you are on that score, the more likely you are to benefit or the more likely you are to have a bad outcome.

So in a workflow example, I'm discharged from the hospital. I have heart failure, and a report gets generated to a case manager that this patient needs to be very high on a list of patients likely to be readmitted. And in that case, a manager can then consult with the clinical team. Here's Rich, here are the factors that put him at risk, here’s something we might be able to do about it—should we act on that, and have our care managers give him a call and make sure he's doing X, Y, and Z? That would be an example.

Similarly, we have a product called the OM1 Medical Burden Index™ (OMBI™) which is a predictive medical score for how likely I am to generate much higher costs in the next year, and if I'm coming in to have a surgical procedure and the doctor sees that score generated, they're going to want to understand why and whether I am much more at risk for something than others might be even though that may have been or may not have been apparent. And if it is true, then maybe I need to see a diabetes doctor or my primary care doctor before I undergo that procedure to make sure I'm at my best health.

The measurement side happens more on the basis of each time healthcare systems or anyone sees information, they want to know how they compare to others, and if they understand why that is. 

Who are your customers? It seems like everyone in the healthcare system could benefit from this.

Our buyers are all healthcare stakeholders. We have buyers that are life sciences companies, healthcare companies, provider organizations, payers, and with the government.  

There are so many use cases with this technology. How did you choose which ones to go with?

We try to focus on what the most expensive problems in healthcare are, like what will move the needle in terms of healthcare cost. Everybody's interested in that, so we see areas like immunological conditions that are treated with very expensive drugs. If you put them on the wrong drugs, you A, put them at risk, and B, give them something that’s not going to work for them. That’s something to focus on. That’s true in something like rheumatology or orthopedics or MS. More areas that are high dollars and very important today are cardiovascular and metabolic diseases. We do some other conditions, but that's what our main focus is on.

How big is the team now?

We're still under a hundred people but will probably be at a hundred people in the next few months.

How active is the Boston IT health community? There's a lot going on.

In the digital health world in Boston, Governor Baker has a strong focus on trying to emulate the biotech success in Boston areas with digital health success, and because of that, there are many academic hospitals and institutions. You got MIT and Harvard engineering groups, as well as venture groups that are interested in healthcare, so the ecosystem is coming together pretty strongly. Some of the bigger companies have moved in with big investors in the area. Amazon's growing rapidly, Google's growing rapidly, and I think you have a very powerful digital health ecosystem. I think we will be the premier location for digital health in the future.

Alexander Culafi is a Staff Writer at VentureFizz. He also edits and produces The VentureFizz Podcast. Follow him on Twitter: @culafia.

For this episode of The VentureFizz Podcast, I interviewed Justin Robinson, Co-Founder & SVP of New Business at Drizly.

Shortly after graduating from Boston College, Justin started Drizly with his two co-founders: Nick and Corey Rellas. They saw an opportunity to build a company in a relatively untapped area of eCommerce—that being the home delivery of beer, wine, and liquor. Today, Drizly is available across 101 markets and the company has raised $35M in venture funding.

In this episode of our podcast, we cover:

• The aha moment behind starting Drizly
• The early days of the company, which were spent working in a liquor store to learn the ins and outs of the industry
• How they able to initially attract consumers and build a company in a highly regulated industry
• Why they are poised to win over Amazon
• Advice for first-time entrepreneurs raising capital
• Plus, a lot more!