Meeting Title: Braveforged AI x Debra Richman Sync Date: 2025-10-29 Meeting participants: Robert Tseng, Debra Richman
WEBVTT
1 00:01:41.140 ⇒ 00:01:44.399 Debra Richman: Hi, Deborah. Hey, how are you? Nice to meet you.
2 00:01:44.400 ⇒ 00:01:45.470 Robert Tseng: Good to meet you.
3 00:01:45.470 ⇒ 00:01:47.530 Debra Richman: So where are you today?
4 00:01:47.530 ⇒ 00:01:48.980 Robert Tseng: I’m in New York, actually.
5 00:01:48.980 ⇒ 00:01:50.680 Debra Richman: Yeah, me too. We’re in New York.
6 00:01:50.800 ⇒ 00:01:52.319 Robert Tseng: Columbus Circle.
7 00:01:52.320 ⇒ 00:01:55.070 Debra Richman: Oh, I’m close to you! I’m Riverside and 70th.
8 00:01:55.350 ⇒ 00:01:57.560 Robert Tseng: Oh, no way, okay, yeah, I mean,
9 00:01:58.580 ⇒ 00:02:01.160 Robert Tseng: Yeah, my wife and I take walks up there all the time, so…
10 00:02:01.160 ⇒ 00:02:05.769 Debra Richman: Yeah, that’s where I live. So I live right in, you know, those… all of those high-rise buildings.
11 00:02:05.770 ⇒ 00:02:06.580 Robert Tseng: Yeah, yeah.
12 00:02:06.580 ⇒ 00:02:11.040 Debra Richman: Yeah, so I have this great view of the water in New Jersey, and yeah.
13 00:02:11.160 ⇒ 00:02:11.840 Robert Tseng: Yeah.
14 00:02:12.100 ⇒ 00:02:13.200 Robert Tseng: Okay, nice.
15 00:02:13.200 ⇒ 00:02:16.399 Debra Richman: So are you… are you right around Columbus Circle?
16 00:02:16.820 ⇒ 00:02:23.029 Robert Tseng: Yeah, so I’m actually on 58th, which is, yeah, just, like, a block, a block down, yeah.
17 00:02:23.030 ⇒ 00:02:25.849 Debra Richman: Great, that’s a good location, because you’re so close to everything.
18 00:02:26.010 ⇒ 00:02:34.199 Robert Tseng: Yeah, yeah. Yeah, we… I mean, we moved here in March, I mean, it’s honestly the favorite… my favorite place I’ve ever lived in my life, so…
19 00:02:34.200 ⇒ 00:02:36.540 Debra Richman: Did you move from? Did you move from outside New York?
20 00:02:36.540 ⇒ 00:02:47.800 Robert Tseng: Yeah, I’ve been in New York for about 2 years now, but before that was in LA, so kind of more of a California, California boy, not really… never really lived in the big city before, so…
21 00:02:47.800 ⇒ 00:02:58.370 Debra Richman: Well, I grew up in New York, and I always say that, in everyone’s life, they should live in New York at one… at one point.
22 00:02:58.500 ⇒ 00:03:02.270 Robert Tseng: Yeah. I think there’s honestly no other place like it.
23 00:03:02.590 ⇒ 00:03:12.139 Robert Tseng: Yeah, no, I believe that so much. I think I’ve met so many incredible people in such a short amount of time. Yeah, so we love the energy here, and…
24 00:03:12.140 ⇒ 00:03:12.660 Debra Richman: Good.
25 00:03:12.660 ⇒ 00:03:14.580 Robert Tseng: You know, we’ll be here for the foreseeable future, so…
26 00:03:14.580 ⇒ 00:03:19.270 Debra Richman: All right, cool, good, good, good. So, what do you do, and what does your company do?
27 00:03:19.580 ⇒ 00:03:29.460 Robert Tseng: Yeah, so I guess a couple things. With HealthUSA, I went there with a client of mine, they’re called Eden Health, so it’s like a GLP-1 supplements company.
28 00:03:29.570 ⇒ 00:03:35.520 Robert Tseng: But also kind of in the longevity space, too. We have two health clubs, one in Denver and one in Detroit.
29 00:03:35.720 ⇒ 00:03:38.849 Robert Tseng: That are kind of just doing all types of, like.
30 00:03:39.310 ⇒ 00:03:42.119 Robert Tseng: Services alongside the products that we sell.
31 00:03:42.120 ⇒ 00:03:43.080 Debra Richman: Oh, great.
32 00:03:43.080 ⇒ 00:03:54.510 Robert Tseng: Yeah, but I… I said client because I actually run Braveforged AI. We’re basically, like, a data and AI consultancy, traditionally in CPG, but I think health has been, like, a vertical that
33 00:03:54.610 ⇒ 00:04:07.000 Robert Tseng: We’ve been doing well, and we’re getting a lot more business there. So, yeah, I think… I thought it was just a good timing to go and meet… grow my network in this industry, and
34 00:04:07.000 ⇒ 00:04:17.469 Robert Tseng: Yeah, I, you know, it was great. I didn’t meet you in person at the conference, but, yeah, met a lot of people, a lot of great takeaways, yeah, glad we got to have the time to follow up.
35 00:04:17.470 ⇒ 00:04:35.260 Debra Richman: Yeah, for sure. So, I second everything you said. In regards to health, I know them well. I speak there every year. I’ve done them for, like, 6 years. I think it’s a great meeting, I think it’s a great place to network, so completely agree with you on that. I think they do a great job at the conference.
36 00:04:35.270 ⇒ 00:04:41.969 Debra Richman: in regards to healthcare as an industry, so I… that’s what I… I work in exclusively, and there’s certain sectors
37 00:04:42.130 ⇒ 00:04:55.740 Debra Richman: AI, healthcare services, value-based care, wellness, longevity are areas that I spend a lot of time in. I think that… I always say I think the healthcare business is phenomenal. I think the industry is
38 00:04:55.740 ⇒ 00:05:05.300 Debra Richman: you know, it’s a $4 trillion business, so from a commercial perspective, you know, you have this really… you have a lot of opportunities. There’s always a business.
39 00:05:05.300 ⇒ 00:05:06.340 Debra Richman: the…
40 00:05:06.340 ⇒ 00:05:30.379 Debra Richman: challenge slash opportunity in healthcare, it’s not cyclical, but there are some sectors that are more in vogue at times than others, so if you have the ability to time the market and see where it’s going, you have really interesting opportunities. So, from a commercial perspective, I really like the business, and then, personally, I think it matters. I think, you know, we’re doing good stuff in healthcare, so…
41 00:05:30.380 ⇒ 00:05:38.490 Debra Richman: I think it’s a great space to be in. I think the sectors that you’re in are really good, and I think even for CPG,
42 00:05:38.900 ⇒ 00:05:44.020 Debra Richman: I’ve done some work with CPG companies that, you know, everybody wants to access healthcare.
43 00:05:44.180 ⇒ 00:05:54.620 Debra Richman: And I think, you know, they… a lot of the companies recognize that it’s big. It’s a big space, like we said. It’s front and center, and it has a really strong… for some…
44 00:05:55.950 ⇒ 00:06:10.949 Debra Richman: verticals that has, you know, really strong consumer plays more than others, so that CPG… those CPG skills that you have are going to be very transferable to healthcare. So, agree with you on what you’re doing. Now, do you provide, then.
45 00:06:10.980 ⇒ 00:06:16.319 Debra Richman: Technology support for clients, or marketing support, or both?
46 00:06:16.730 ⇒ 00:06:25.210 Robert Tseng: Yeah, so we’re not a, like, a vendor, so we don’t… I mean, yeah, we’re a services provider, and so we help,
47 00:06:25.390 ⇒ 00:06:26.560 Robert Tseng: companies…
48 00:06:27.220 ⇒ 00:06:42.469 Robert Tseng: kind of figure out how to build their… build their tech stack. And so, I think what a trend that we’ve noticed in… I think one of the big takeaways from help, actually, was that there’s a lot of consolidation that’s… that’s imminent. Consolidation is imminent, would probably be my tagline.
49 00:06:43.060 ⇒ 00:07:00.109 Robert Tseng: you know, we… we work with, you know, I think, especially in the post… post-care kind of, like, services, there’s all these, like, self-managed, like, biomarker kind of apps, things like, you know, we’ve had clients like Function Health and… and other, like, kind of app-based kind of companies that are
50 00:07:00.110 ⇒ 00:07:06.599 Robert Tseng: You know, people are really interested in, like, pulling all this health data that people are tracking, and then being able to, kind of have
51 00:07:06.600 ⇒ 00:07:26.870 Robert Tseng: your AI co-pilot that’s telling you how to continue on your plan, or there’s, like, some, you know, habit-based kind of, like, program that you can build out. So, you know, some of the same playbooks that I’ve seen in traditional SaaS are obviously kind of in this health vertical, and so that was, like, one angle that I was, like, taking when I was approaching and talking to people at the conference.
52 00:07:26.870 ⇒ 00:07:43.959 Robert Tseng: And then on the CPG side, like you said, I mean, these are all really high-ticket products, and so, obviously, when my clients, Eden Health, you know, it’s great. People are signing up for 6-month treatment plans on GLP-1, whether it’s Ozempic or, or semaglutide or something like that.
53 00:07:43.960 ⇒ 00:07:58.619 Robert Tseng: And so, yeah, I think, like, these are… these… these… these, like you said, these have been here for a while. I think they’ve become vogue and kind of in… and a lot of the attention in the past few years, a lot of funding has come into these sectors, but now we’re seeing, like.
54 00:07:58.660 ⇒ 00:08:14.559 Robert Tseng: a lot of these competitors kind of, like, buying out each other in this consolidation. So, I kind of… the target that I’m looking for now is actually, I’m talking to a couple, like, PE firms or kind of managed funds that are kind of focused on trying to buy up some of these companies, and their question is, like.
55 00:08:14.560 ⇒ 00:08:20.650 Robert Tseng: okay, like, what’s a standardized way to measure, kind of, measure these businesses, both on the marketing side.
56 00:08:20.650 ⇒ 00:08:41.529 Robert Tseng: unit economics of, like, the patient acquisition has, like, you know, changed a lot, especially as regulation continues to come into play. So that’s always, like, important to stay on top of, like, what’s present and new, and we can be a thought leader on that side. But then also, a lot of platforms are shifting. There’s so many, like, digitally native platforms that have, like, stood up.
57 00:08:41.530 ⇒ 00:08:51.119 Robert Tseng: companies like Healthy, Healthfully, so we’re helping launch a couple clinics in… specialty clinics in New York City that are built on top of these digitally native platforms that
58 00:08:51.120 ⇒ 00:09:02.839 Robert Tseng: you know, they’re migrating off of what has been here for, like, 20, 30 years? And so, I think that’s kind of, like, the… kind of where… where we’re playing right now, and taking… kind of trying to ride the wave of, like, there is a lot of…
59 00:09:02.900 ⇒ 00:09:11.810 Robert Tseng: Money going into these, like, big changes in tech, and we’re gonna be there to basically be the professional services provider to bridge the gap.
60 00:09:12.020 ⇒ 00:09:19.020 Debra Richman: Great. So, I’m smiling because I’m gonna tell you a couple of things, and you’re probably gonna smile, too. Okay. So,
61 00:09:19.580 ⇒ 00:09:38.880 Debra Richman: I’ve been in healthcare, you know, my entire career, and I’ve been very fortunate in that I have worked on the payer side, and on the provider side, and on the consumer side, and on the tech side, on the investor side, on the operator side. What that’s afforded me, Robert, is this… I know how the pieces fit together.
62 00:09:38.880 ⇒ 00:09:39.540 Robert Tseng: Mmm.
63 00:09:39.540 ⇒ 00:09:52.719 Debra Richman: And in addition to that, I’ve had a very good sense of where the market’s going. I wouldn’t say I was prescient, but I’ve had a good sense of where the trends are. You know, you want to be… what’s the thing about, like, hockey? You want to… you want to…
64 00:09:53.690 ⇒ 00:10:12.749 Debra Richman: skate where the puck is, yeah. Skate where the puck’s going. So I’ve been able to do that, and I’ve been able to do that on behalf of companies that I… either been my clients or companies that I have worked for. So I’m able to identify opportunities and then put them together, because I have an enormous network in the industry, so I’m able to, again.
65 00:10:12.750 ⇒ 00:10:19.279 Debra Richman: strategize it, but from an action-oriented perspective, and then put it into play.
66 00:10:20.390 ⇒ 00:10:31.040 Debra Richman: When you talked about, kind of, you know, taking digital… digitally native companies, and then, like, incorporating, like, a physical location.
67 00:10:31.050 ⇒ 00:10:47.830 Debra Richman: you know, we’ve seen the industry go back and forth and back and forth in terms of, like, digital and physical and digital, and then, you know… and I think, ultimately, you need to be all of these things, and the question is, what can you be best of breed for both? So, like, as an example, I…
68 00:10:48.160 ⇒ 00:11:07.450 Debra Richman: I’ve spent a lot of time in the oncology space, on the specialty side. I’ve done a lot of specialty work, and I was chief development officer for the Oncology Institute, which is the largest value-based oncology provider in the country. And I led all of our corporate development, so all of our M&A, we acquired community-based oncology practices, or we’d stand up our own de novo clinics.
69 00:11:07.450 ⇒ 00:11:11.250 Debra Richman: Or we would do a hybrid of both, and then we would basically take that
70 00:11:11.720 ⇒ 00:11:26.390 Debra Richman: provider capacity, which we had, like, 1.75 million capitated oncology lives, 70-plus clinics, 5 states, and then sell that to payers. And payers are either health plans or what we call at-risk provider groups, and you have a lot of those
71 00:11:26.910 ⇒ 00:11:32.909 Debra Richman: kind of formulations going on. So, I’ve done a lot of work, in the
72 00:11:33.110 ⇒ 00:11:48.539 Debra Richman: specialty care space around what you’re talking about. I think it makes total sense. What I will say, this kind of ties it back to what you were talking about, what I do… so I do advisory work. A lot of my clients are private equity firms.
73 00:11:48.540 ⇒ 00:11:57.300 Debra Richman: that I assist them either with diligence of transactions they’re looking at, or if they have underperforming portfolio companies, because I’m all about revenue growth.
74 00:11:57.570 ⇒ 00:11:59.810 Debra Richman: what I think is a challenge.
75 00:12:00.210 ⇒ 00:12:06.060 Debra Richman: For a lot of the companies, and why you’re seeing that consolidation is that they don’t have access to the market.
76 00:12:06.120 ⇒ 00:12:28.809 Debra Richman: They just have revenue. They can’t grow. And when you have a lot of, you know, 4, 5, 6 kind of Me Too-type companies that are not clearly differentiated out in their offering or their value proposition, it becomes very hard to get market share, and even though there’s a lot of capital around, it gets very hard to continue to grow. So that’s why I agree with you. You’re going to see a lot of consolidation.
77 00:12:29.120 ⇒ 00:12:30.989 Debra Richman: So what I do…
78 00:12:31.670 ⇒ 00:12:38.030 Debra Richman: And I don’t know if you know Alvarez and Marcel, I was a managing director with A&M for a number of years, but what I do…
79 00:12:38.030 ⇒ 00:12:38.360 Robert Tseng: Hmm.
80 00:12:38.360 ⇒ 00:12:41.869 Debra Richman: now, as I do advisory work, I help companies
81 00:12:42.980 ⇒ 00:12:45.979 Debra Richman: you helped them build their tech stack, you said, right?
82 00:12:45.980 ⇒ 00:12:46.460 Robert Tseng: Yeah.
83 00:12:46.460 ⇒ 00:12:48.209 Debra Richman: I help them build their revenue.
84 00:12:48.490 ⇒ 00:13:04.330 Debra Richman: So, it’s similar to what you do, but I come at it from a different perspective of, okay, looking at the market, how do we grow, and what should that strategy be? So, I get what you’re doing, I think it makes total sense.
85 00:13:05.020 ⇒ 00:13:08.249 Debra Richman: you know, from the CPG side, I think it’s good
86 00:13:08.590 ⇒ 00:13:14.490 Debra Richman: I think because healthcare is so interrelated that many times you do need to get the providers
87 00:13:14.700 ⇒ 00:13:22.719 Debra Richman: As part of the equation, and the payers as part of the equation, if you want to… if you want to get reimbursement, if it’s not just private pay.
88 00:13:22.860 ⇒ 00:13:26.630 Debra Richman: So, completely agree… suffice to say, I agree with what you said.
89 00:13:26.780 ⇒ 00:13:27.370 Debra Richman: I think…
90 00:13:27.370 ⇒ 00:13:39.299 Robert Tseng: Yeah, no, I think… thanks for the… yeah, I mean, I love… I love that tie-in, and I think, yeah, you have some… I’m sure your network is extensive on both the… especially on the… on both sides of the table.
91 00:13:39.300 ⇒ 00:13:55.770 Robert Tseng: I guess I’m curious, like, from your perspective, as you’ve done diligence work and, you know, you’re obviously advising on how to grow revenue, are there… I mean, unlocking those networks, to be able to get access to the market is probably the biggest lever, but I’m curious, you know, if you…
92 00:13:55.770 ⇒ 00:14:12.139 Robert Tseng: you know, from what you’ve seen, are there certain invest… tech investments that you’ve seen that, kind of move the needle the most on the revenue side? Like, and do you kind of, like… I’m trying to… I want us to narrow our offering as well as we’re going to new clients,
93 00:14:12.290 ⇒ 00:14:24.099 Robert Tseng: like, I kind of know what the biggest wins have been for our clients, like, so far, but I’d love to kind of hear from, like, obviously, like, the 30,000-foot view from your side, kind of how you feel like the years are really turning.
94 00:14:24.410 ⇒ 00:14:28.430 Debra Richman: Yeah, so I gave you a lot of information, so in the absence of any specifics.
95 00:14:28.430 ⇒ 00:14:28.810 Robert Tseng: Yep.
96 00:14:28.810 ⇒ 00:14:36.660 Debra Richman: Look at, like, specialty clinics. If you’re going to build them off of digital, say, okay, we need a physical footprint. So, always say you either
97 00:14:36.740 ⇒ 00:14:54.679 Debra Richman: sell to more customers, or you sell more to your existing customers. So, everybody wants to get higher up on the food chain, get more of the premium dollar, get more revenue, right? And I would think that with your specialty clinics that you’re building off of a digital presence, that you’re saying, okay.
98 00:14:54.730 ⇒ 00:15:08.619 Debra Richman: we can only get so much traction, we can only get so much engagement, we can only get so much revenue off of this digital piece, we’ll wrap a physical piece around it, right? These two specialty clinics.
99 00:15:08.870 ⇒ 00:15:11.960 Debra Richman: I think the models that do best, it depends…
100 00:15:12.920 ⇒ 00:15:21.360 Debra Richman: depends on the specialty. I’ve done a lot of specialty work. So, different specialties Drive different revenue components.
101 00:15:21.570 ⇒ 00:15:22.090 Robert Tseng: Hmm.
102 00:15:22.090 ⇒ 00:15:23.630 Debra Richman: Right, so…
103 00:15:23.650 ⇒ 00:15:43.159 Debra Richman: Some specialties have a lot of drugs associated with them, so there’s revenue associated with that. Some specialties have a lot of procedures associated with them, so there’s different revenue associated with that. So you want to look at… and what I always do, and I’ve done this multiple times, is you want to look at
104 00:15:43.160 ⇒ 00:15:47.950 Debra Richman: Kind of what’s the ecosystem that’s around that specialty?
105 00:15:48.020 ⇒ 00:15:50.200 Debra Richman: You know, when you look at, you know, what’s…
106 00:15:50.690 ⇒ 00:15:55.590 Debra Richman: Above them, you know, what’s upstream, what’s downstream? And you want to look at
107 00:15:55.970 ⇒ 00:16:03.909 Debra Richman: maximizing the revenue, if you will, for your business, or your client’s business, around specialty.
108 00:16:04.280 ⇒ 00:16:08.410 Debra Richman: So you want to… you want to identify what drives revenue.
109 00:16:08.820 ⇒ 00:16:23.409 Debra Richman: you know, you want to understand referral patterns, and I don’t know with these groups, are they employing the physicians? Are they contracting with the physicians? Are they buying existing practices? So those are always factors that you want to look at, and you want to think about when you kind of go into this business, but.
110 00:16:23.610 ⇒ 00:16:24.070 Robert Tseng: Yeah.
111 00:16:24.070 ⇒ 00:16:26.820 Debra Richman: Think about the services.
112 00:16:27.170 ⇒ 00:16:35.479 Debra Richman: Maximizing the services, and then… And then… and then there’s actually 3 channels, because you’ll have
113 00:16:36.160 ⇒ 00:16:54.470 Debra Richman: private pay, all right? Then you’ll have… and there’s a whole set of stuff that goes along with that, and then you’ll have reimbursement. Do you want… do you need to have… because, again, if you’re just doing private pay, it’s fine, but it is somewhat limited, and that’s going to mean you’re going to be very consumer-dependent, right?
114 00:16:54.470 ⇒ 00:16:54.790 Robert Tseng: Right.
115 00:16:54.790 ⇒ 00:16:58.609 Debra Richman: If you’re going reimbursement route, You know.
116 00:16:59.360 ⇒ 00:17:09.859 Debra Richman: what do you need to do to appeal to the payers? How do you get reimbursement? How do you get into the networks to get the reimbursement? And then you have the
117 00:17:10.000 ⇒ 00:17:19.230 Debra Richman: you know, government programs, Medicare and Medicaid, and you have commercial, which are employed. So, there’s things that you think about on top of, you know.
118 00:17:19.540 ⇒ 00:17:27.610 Debra Richman: what are the specialty areas? And then, to me, and I always think about, you know, going for the largest distribution channel.
119 00:17:27.810 ⇒ 00:17:36.589 Debra Richman: I can, because if you’re just private pay, and you know this from your CPG stuff, you’re just… not just, but you’re selling to people, right?
120 00:17:36.590 ⇒ 00:17:37.000 Robert Tseng: Yep.
121 00:17:37.000 ⇒ 00:17:56.259 Debra Richman: This is, you know, the value… insurers, payers, are harder to deal with, but you get this massive distribution, potentially a massive distribution channel. So you have to think about, kind of, where your partners are. So, I don’t know if that helps at all, but those are the, kind of, when you start to think about the factors when you’re building these.
122 00:17:57.010 ⇒ 00:18:09.339 Robert Tseng: Yeah, no, I think that totally makes sense. I think the way that you laid it out, like, I think that that’s pretty spot on. I mean, I think, obviously, probably when these clinics, or whatever, whether it’s a company or clinic.
123 00:18:09.790 ⇒ 00:18:15.440 Robert Tseng: they’re starting off maybe with one, and they’re obviously wanting to expand across. And so.
124 00:18:15.460 ⇒ 00:18:30.759 Robert Tseng: Yeah, I think, like, with the CBG, it’s mostly private. You’re selling to consumers first, and then they’re trying to kind of expand, get, try… try to expand their service offerings so that they can actually tap into some of those other networks as well. With one of the clinics that we’re working with.
125 00:18:30.760 ⇒ 00:18:47.959 Robert Tseng: you know, they have a bunch of government funding, and so they’re starting off, kind of, like, you know, they have Medicaid networks that they’re starting in, but they also want, kind of, the private employer as well. And so, I think those are… it’s interesting, I think you laid it out well, like, those are the conversations that are happening at
126 00:18:47.990 ⇒ 00:18:50.049 Robert Tseng: At the higher level, for sure.
127 00:18:50.050 ⇒ 00:18:58.930 Debra Richman: Right, right. And Medicaid and the employer are very different lines of business. Very different lines of business, yeah.
128 00:18:59.030 ⇒ 00:19:11.880 Debra Richman: So, yeah. Anyway, that’s… yeah. So, so in terms of your question of what do I see, I see lots of businesses, I see lots of groups. I think it depends on multiple factors, you know.
129 00:19:12.910 ⇒ 00:19:31.909 Debra Richman: what’s the revenue? What’s the revenue growth look like? You know, where are they getting the patients slash members from? And then, how are they reimbursed? And then you have a whole other, kind of category, which we’ve not talked about, which is risk-based contracting, you know. So it’s one is, you know, you’re getting
130 00:19:32.110 ⇒ 00:19:34.550 Debra Richman: Fee-for-service revenue, if you will.
131 00:19:34.550 ⇒ 00:19:34.880 Robert Tseng: Hmm.
132 00:19:34.880 ⇒ 00:19:49.959 Debra Richman: But, you know, there’s a whole, which I’ve done a lot of contracting in value-based care, is because, you know, can you differentiate your offering by your providers contracting differently? Can they, quote-unquote, put some skin in the game in terms of how they’re
133 00:19:49.960 ⇒ 00:19:58.949 Debra Richman: Contracting for their services. And again, in the absence of having a specific, but you want to look at multiple factors when you look at that type of contracting.
134 00:19:59.720 ⇒ 00:20:00.560 Robert Tseng: I see.
135 00:20:01.060 ⇒ 00:20:05.859 Robert Tseng: Yeah, no, I think that’s another dimension that I haven’t really thought about, the providers themselves, and…
136 00:20:05.940 ⇒ 00:20:23.510 Robert Tseng: I mean, oftentimes it’s just, like, I’ve given whatever network they have, and we’re kind of just helping set up the appointments, just operationally kind of keep things grounding, but we’re not really, like, yeah, we’re not really going in there, evaluating if this is the best type of arrangement that they should be having with their providers, so that’s an interesting angle as well.
137 00:20:23.510 ⇒ 00:20:32.619 Debra Richman: Yeah, because it’s all about, you know, how do you drive revenue, and, you know, what are the funnels to do that? When you set up things for providers, do you set up, like, AI agents for them? That type of thing?
138 00:20:32.820 ⇒ 00:20:38.280 Robert Tseng: Yeah, so anything, scheduling agents, and then, yeah, so as much as we can…
139 00:20:38.280 ⇒ 00:20:59.479 Robert Tseng: kind of help streamline the booking, because I think that’s, like, one value-based outcome that we can unlock. It’s like, you’re losing all these bookings, we can help you be able to, like, kind of recover them. And so, adding, kind of injecting some agentic workflow into there to help them with the triage process, that seems to be, like, the easiest, like, you know, kind of one of the lower-hanging fruits that we can do.
140 00:20:59.480 ⇒ 00:21:01.230 Robert Tseng: Yeah.
141 00:21:01.230 ⇒ 00:21:03.560 Debra Richman: You do inbound as well as outbound?
142 00:21:03.790 ⇒ 00:21:23.199 Robert Tseng: Yeah, it’s mostly inbound. Yeah, I think, using outbound agents to go and target patients, that’s not something we’ve done in the healthcare sector. I mean, I run it for my own business, like, we do a lot of AI-assisted outbound, and for other types of businesses, but yeah, I mean, I guess that’s… yeah, that’s an area that we haven’t… we haven’t worked with in…
143 00:21:23.200 ⇒ 00:21:30.280 Debra Richman: area. You should look at that. Yeah, I’ve done a fair amount of work in that space, and I think it’s a really big area, because
144 00:21:30.280 ⇒ 00:21:52.929 Debra Richman: you know, your inbound is to reduce cancellations, reduce no-shows, and, you know, reduce, you know, improve EBITDA of the practice, if you will, or the group. Your outbound can function as, did you know this from your non-healthcare business, can function as a revenue generator. Right. And then again, depending upon the specialty, you want to think about what that outbound is.
145 00:21:53.550 ⇒ 00:22:03.909 Robert Tseng: Yeah, no, I think that is… that’s great. I think the other thing I will say is, yeah, I mentioned, kind of, biomarker apps and, like, why I like that vertical specifically.
146 00:22:03.910 ⇒ 00:22:28.610 Robert Tseng: because, like, I mean, my background is first in software and then CPG, and so, everything, like, behavioral analytics, just being able to, like, work with event streams, taking data from a lot of different sources, and then kind of having one single place that you can kind of stitch together, like, all the different, like, everything you want to know about a customer or patient. Like, that’s probably where I feel the most comfortable.
147 00:22:28.830 ⇒ 00:22:47.309 Robert Tseng: And so, now that there’s a lot of at-home diagnostic tools, and, like, people have all these wearable devices, there’s just, like, been an influx of things that people are trying to capture and consolidate, and so that’s, like, another, like, offering that we’ve put together that we use to go to… yeah, that seems to resonate with the market right now.
148 00:22:47.310 ⇒ 00:22:49.339 Debra Richman: Who’s your ideal customer?
149 00:22:50.020 ⇒ 00:23:00.119 Robert Tseng: Yeah, so on the… on the health side, I think it’s really, like, a digitally native, health practice, so it could be a clinic, could be, like, a products company.
150 00:23:00.140 ⇒ 00:23:02.580 Robert Tseng: That’s, like, trying to…
151 00:23:02.580 ⇒ 00:23:27.469 Robert Tseng: like, yeah, that’s trying to scale. So we were looking at somebody who’s doing at least $10 million in revenue if they’re on the CPG side. On the clinic side, I think it’s less… I mean, sometimes it’s less mature than that. It’s like, they just want to set up… they want us to architect and set up the whole infrastructure as well. Help them choose the vendors that they’re going to be plugging into, like, whatever EHR that they’ve kind of, like, decided to go with. We’re a partner of Healthy, which is one of
152 00:23:27.470 ⇒ 00:23:40.779 Robert Tseng: of, like, larger digital native, telehealth platforms there. And so we, we kind of are able to help them, help, help their, help their customers be able to set up their system well.
153 00:23:40.950 ⇒ 00:23:46.170 Debra Richman: Do you integrate… when you do set it up for them, do you integrate with, like, Epic and Athena?
154 00:23:46.500 ⇒ 00:23:52.970 Robert Tseng: Yeah, so Athena, we’ve done what we work with, and I think, yeah, really, it’s just that
155 00:23:52.970 ⇒ 00:24:13.390 Robert Tseng: the… even though there are… it’s supposed to be easier to stand up, because it’s still so fragmented, you do… most clinics don’t really have the technical depth internally to be able to, like, set these up properly themselves, and the vendors themselves, they don’t really have the professional services arm to do it, so I think that’s why there’s so much white space for firms like myself that
156 00:24:13.390 ⇒ 00:24:32.550 Robert Tseng: you know, we’re able to just go in and connect tools, like, that’s just, like, our… we can do that across any industry. And so, I’m trying to see if there’s, like, a more differentiated, kind of, like, way I can package, like, hey, we do this very well, specifically for this type of specialty, or at this stage in the clinic. I think that’s still early, early for me, yeah, to kind of figure out.
157 00:24:32.550 ⇒ 00:24:45.300 Debra Richman: Yeah, and I think you probably also want to remain fairly opportunistic, so you’d like to be able to present that capability for that right… that specialty, but also appeal to others.
158 00:24:45.300 ⇒ 00:24:47.140 Robert Tseng: So you’re in… Yeah.
159 00:24:47.570 ⇒ 00:24:55.990 Debra Richman: if I understand, and correct me if I’m wrong, your ideal customer or optimal would be to anyone who kind of needs a,
160 00:24:56.820 ⇒ 00:25:00.769 Debra Richman: A partner in that, it’s a…
161 00:25:01.030 ⇒ 00:25:07.719 Debra Richman: you talked about the tech stack, but it’s a little bit more. Do you consider, like, an AI strategy, or…
162 00:25:07.720 ⇒ 00:25:08.510 Robert Tseng: Yeah.
163 00:25:08.510 ⇒ 00:25:09.440 Debra Richman: Okay.
164 00:25:10.070 ⇒ 00:25:23.040 Robert Tseng: Yeah, so data and AI strategists, I think, is probably a bit more precise way to put it. I kind of lead off with tech stack, just to kind of get the conversation going, but we view AI as an extension of a data problem. Ultimately.
165 00:25:23.140 ⇒ 00:25:39.109 Robert Tseng: Like, for us, like, most of our AI work is workflow automation. There are a few client-facing, kind of, interfaces, like the… like the agents, or kind of like, you know, doing some of the scheduling or routing, whatever, but for the most part, the AI helps to kind of
166 00:25:39.230 ⇒ 00:25:45.980 Robert Tseng: Yeah, AI helps us to get all… to basically speed up the data work that we’re already doing under the hood.
167 00:25:45.980 ⇒ 00:25:57.499 Debra Richman: Okay, and are you then, like, so let’s say it’s a group, because I’ve dealt with a number of, like, AI agent companies in particular. Let’s say you have a group, and they have 10 clinics.
168 00:25:57.500 ⇒ 00:25:58.090 Robert Tseng: Yep.
169 00:25:58.090 ⇒ 00:26:01.470 Debra Richman: 3 states of 20 clinics, and .
170 00:26:01.470 ⇒ 00:26:02.110 Robert Tseng: Yeah.
171 00:26:02.110 ⇒ 00:26:09.320 Debra Richman: And they engage you. Do you do the coding, and do you set up this, or do you bring in other vendors?
172 00:26:10.000 ⇒ 00:26:21.959 Robert Tseng: So we have… we have, people in-house to do some of the work. We have partners if we need to do, so, like, let’s say if we need to build out, like, a whole new, like, app interface for them, we would… we would contract that out. We’re not an app developer.
173 00:26:21.960 ⇒ 00:26:37.710 Robert Tseng: But, like, to kind of be the first, the first kind of boots on the ground, laying out what the roadmap was, being able to provide kind of work backwards. For example, like, this… this… this specialty clinic, they’re having two… launching two clinics in New York City in April next…
174 00:26:37.710 ⇒ 00:26:52.930 Robert Tseng: next year, we’re basically working backwards from that timeline where, by February, they want to be able to do a dry run across all their, kind of, operations with synthetic patient data, right? So, yeah, like, being able to make sure that
175 00:26:52.930 ⇒ 00:27:08.659 Robert Tseng: everything from the diagnostics that they’re capturing, and to, you know, all of the operational kind of triaging that needs to happen, showing them that, like, the two separate systems, because we operate HIPAA compliantly with all the patient data that you’re capturing here, everything’s stripped out, and you get, like, another, like, kind of
176 00:27:08.660 ⇒ 00:27:32.930 Robert Tseng: ERP system here, where you’re able to do kind of the account-to-account if you’re doing… for the B2B side of their business, and also they have some direct pairs as well. Like, kind of all of that infrastructure and being able to showcase that, you know, we’re ready to go on all these fronts, like, that’s the work that we’ve been doing with them. So, I feel like it’s really ground-up architecture, like, all the way from, kind of the… from the start.
177 00:27:33.220 ⇒ 00:27:34.140 Debra Richman: Right.
178 00:27:34.140 ⇒ 00:27:34.690 Robert Tseng: Yeah.
179 00:27:34.690 ⇒ 00:27:38.470 Debra Richman: That’s good, that’s… that’s really good. So you’re looking for more clients, then?
180 00:27:38.930 ⇒ 00:27:57.710 Robert Tseng: Yeah, I would say… I would say that. I think, we… actually, we’re working on a couple, like, white papers as well with partners. One was, like, on the whole, like, HIPAA compliance. I think, that’s one that we’ll publish… we’re publishing this week. So I’m also looking for partners to kind of
181 00:27:57.710 ⇒ 00:28:01.399 Robert Tseng: You know, subject matter experts like yourself, you want to be able to
182 00:28:01.800 ⇒ 00:28:17.570 Robert Tseng: you know, to do… to co-write something together, or to… to do an interview. Basically, like, yeah, like, we… I have a marketing team in-house, so, like, I want to be able to use that platform to be able to bring more of that expertise into… into…
183 00:28:17.780 ⇒ 00:28:19.710 Robert Tseng: Nope, into our network.
184 00:28:19.710 ⇒ 00:28:25.100 Debra Richman: That’s interesting, but I wasn’t sure exactly what you did. I think that’s very interesting.
185 00:28:25.290 ⇒ 00:28:27.329 Debra Richman: So who do you compete against?
186 00:28:28.510 ⇒ 00:28:36.310 Robert Tseng: I would say on the, you know, on this side of, on the healthcare side, there are, like.
187 00:28:38.220 ⇒ 00:28:47.869 Robert Tseng: vendor, like, other… other service… there are, like, large service providers. I think there’s, like, kind of… you have the… on one side of the spectrum, you have maybe folks like yourself who have been
188 00:28:48.030 ⇒ 00:28:54.070 Robert Tseng: Very well connected, and, like, you know, they’re, they’re really great architects or strategists,
189 00:28:54.210 ⇒ 00:28:56.909 Robert Tseng: And, you caught…
190 00:28:57.090 ⇒ 00:29:16.319 Robert Tseng: that… but they may not have, like, the full… the full team, and so you’re really just, like, kind of consulting them for strategy. And then on the other side, you have, like, full-on, yeah, full-on shops, you know, I mean, the Deloitte’s and, like, kind of of the world that, you know, that side of the spectrum. We’re kind of in between, I would say, where
191 00:29:16.460 ⇒ 00:29:34.590 Robert Tseng: you know, we do subcontract work for some of these big, bigger firms as well, and so we’ve been able to deploy solutions at large scales. You know, we compete in the same RFPs that they do, maybe at, like, a slightly lower budget, but then we move much faster. We have, like, kind of the network of SMEs that we’re trying to develop as well.
192 00:29:34.590 ⇒ 00:29:39.830 Debra Richman: Right. No, that’s interesting. Yeah, I don’t… when… I always kind of…
193 00:29:40.200 ⇒ 00:29:56.779 Debra Richman: push back a little when people say strategy, because to me, I think it’s such an academic term, so I just really do strategy. I really do a lot of go-to-market planning and a lot of revenue growth, because I think people think, well, strategy, you’re just going to sit with them, you know, for a couple of hours and talk about stuff, and I don’t do that, so…
194 00:29:56.780 ⇒ 00:29:58.579 Robert Tseng: Okay, yeah, no, no, not to mischaracterize.
195 00:29:58.580 ⇒ 00:30:08.139 Debra Richman: But I think that just in terms of, like, people say strategy, they think, you know, it’s an expense, where I like to believe that, you know, I’m a… I’m a revenue generator versus an.
196 00:30:08.140 ⇒ 00:30:09.470 Robert Tseng: Absolutely. Yeah.
197 00:30:09.470 ⇒ 00:30:16.230 Debra Richman: But no, I agree with you. I think that’s interesting. And are you finding that there are… because as the space is growing, that there are more, kind of.
198 00:30:16.460 ⇒ 00:30:20.020 Debra Richman: Service providers like you that are emerging?
199 00:30:20.580 ⇒ 00:30:32.279 Robert Tseng: Yeah, absolutely. I think, I was reading something that came out of health. One of the VC funds kind of published this article that was, I forgot what it was Menlo Ventures or something, kind of shared that, like.
200 00:30:32.610 ⇒ 00:30:35.280 Robert Tseng: healthcare AI spend, you know, I think they’.
201 00:30:35.280 ⇒ 00:30:35.680 Debra Richman: what’s.
202 00:30:35.680 ⇒ 00:30:41.619 Robert Tseng: past few years, 80% of it is going to, like, startups or small service providers, so…
203 00:30:41.620 ⇒ 00:30:48.450 Robert Tseng: I think that… that seems to check out for us, like, you know, I don’t think we had any business getting into, kind of, this… this world.
204 00:30:48.450 ⇒ 00:31:05.369 Robert Tseng: to work for the AI, like, I don’t really… I mean, we’ll probably find another wave to ride, but, like, I think there’s… there is just kind of an advantage, perhaps, in the short term that we are able to deploy, like, AI solutions, you know, much, much faster in a world where nobody’s really a true expert right now.
205 00:31:05.590 ⇒ 00:31:06.480 Debra Richman: Yeah
206 00:31:06.590 ⇒ 00:31:14.779 Debra Richman: And then the question’s going to be for you, the opportunity, and the question is, okay, what additional AI solutions do you want to deploy that your customers want?
207 00:31:15.890 ⇒ 00:31:18.390 Robert Tseng: Yeah, I think, there’s this whole, like.
208 00:31:18.900 ⇒ 00:31:27.039 Robert Tseng: the whole idea of, like, the AI assistant, beyond just, like, the scheduling front. Like, how do you use,
209 00:31:27.040 ⇒ 00:31:44.049 Robert Tseng: kind of AI agents to continue to, extend, like, patient lifetime, or, like, lifetime value, I guess. And so, whether… yeah, like, whatever that looks like, whether it’s pushing more coaching, more product upsells, kind of partnerships, like, there’s a lot of different things that I think
210 00:31:44.050 ⇒ 00:31:48.250 Robert Tseng: that to me is, like, opportunity that I want to keep pushing on with my clients, and…
211 00:31:48.410 ⇒ 00:31:50.290 Debra Richman: Yeah. I think it makes a lot of sense. Good.
212 00:31:50.290 ⇒ 00:31:50.670 Robert Tseng: Yeah.
213 00:31:50.670 ⇒ 00:31:52.699 Debra Richman: Well, how is it that I can help you?
214 00:31:53.250 ⇒ 00:31:58.159 Robert Tseng: Yeah, no, I mean, this was… this was a really great conversation. I would love to…
215 00:31:58.320 ⇒ 00:32:12.009 Robert Tseng: You know, if you… I mean, we can shoot you over some material, like, if there’s anybody that you can think of, that’s in your network that you think is kind of, like, a prime fit. I appreciated the kind of breakdown of ICP as well, just to…
216 00:32:12.010 ⇒ 00:32:12.380 Debra Richman: Yep.
217 00:32:12.380 ⇒ 00:32:17.670 Robert Tseng: Kind of keep… keep, you know, sanity checking, like, we’re kind of on… thinking about things the right way.
218 00:32:17.900 ⇒ 00:32:21.590 Robert Tseng: Yeah, so I think that would be a great next step, for me.
219 00:32:21.590 ⇒ 00:32:33.200 Debra Richman: If you have any clients, you know, that maybe need some more help kind of figuring out, you know, how to drive revenue, or go to market, or what they’re doing in the market, or want some partnerships or something, just let me know as well.
220 00:32:33.390 ⇒ 00:32:36.599 Robert Tseng: Okay, great, yeah. Well, I appreciate your time.
221 00:32:36.600 ⇒ 00:32:40.429 Debra Richman: Yeah, it was nice to talk with you, so send me some information, I’ll talk to you soon.
222 00:32:40.430 ⇒ 00:32:41.819 Robert Tseng: Okay, alright, hi, Debra.
223 00:32:41.820 ⇒ 00:32:42.910 Debra Richman: Take care. Bye, Robert.