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Bootstrap First, Raise Money from Kleiner Perkins Later: William King, CEO of Zephyr Health (Part 2)

Posted on Tuesday, Mar 10th 2015

Sramana Mitra: Tell me a bit about where exactly in the chronology of the industry you were coming out of college? What did you do at that point?

William King: I finished school in 2002. It’s an international business degree.

Sramana Mitra: Where were you geographically at that point?

William King: I was in Denver, Colorado. When I was in school, there were a couple of things that were really formative. One was studying abroad and two were internships. I have worked my whole life even as a young fellow in the summers. In school, I remember I was working for an irrigation company. Because my dad was in construction, I had many construction jobs over the years. I remember I was digging the irrigation and it was really hot. I remember having this moment when I thought, “I’m in college. We have this wonderful career center and I have never even walked through the front door. I should probably walk in there and introduce myself.” >>>

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Bootstrap First, Raise Money from Kleiner Perkins Later: William King, CEO of Zephyr Health (Part 1)

Posted on Monday, Mar 9th 2015

Continuing on our theme of ‘Bootstrap First, Raise Money Later’, here’s William King’s story of building a robust company in the healthcare industry, now funded by Kleiner Perkins.

Sramana Mitra: Let’s start at the very beginning of your story. Where are you from? Where were you born, raised, and in what kind of circumstances?

William King: I was born in Princeton, New Jersey. I lived in Princeton until I was 18. I’m the oldest of six children. That’s a little bit unique in that we had a lot of action in the house. The age span was actually a difference of 10 years, which was pretty interesting and pretty heroic, now that I’m a parent myself. As a child, part of my experience in growing up was leading my siblings and helping them to participate. Kids look up to their older brothers and sisters. A lot of what was instilled in me at a very young age is this notion of making good choices, collaboration, and the idea that people are paying attention to the things that you’re doing. >>>

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Disinfecting Hospitals, Impacting Healthcare: Morris Miller, CEO of Xenex (Part 7)

Posted on Thursday, Jan 8th 2015

Sramana Mitra: They allowed you to publish the results as well?

Morris Miller: They actually published it in the journal of Infection Control and Hospital Epidemiology. It’s called ICHE. It was very well received and passed peer review. In March of 2011, when we really could begin selling in earnest, we had our prototypes. We sold our prototype devices. The market wanted them. I say it’s a prototype but it wasn’t really a prototype. Compared to what we have now, it looks like a prototype. It was at that point that we started developing our current germ-zapping robot. We launched that into the market in late 2012.

Interestingly, when we began selling these robots, hospitals would ask us, “What do you think we can expect in terms of reduction in infections?” We would say, “We really don’t know. Maybe 5% to 10%.” In our minds, maybe we could prevent 200,000 infections a year. We might be able to save 10,000 lives. Everybody would look at us and say, “That would be amazing.” >>>

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Disinfecting Hospitals, Impacting Healthcare: Morris Miller, CEO of Xenex (Part 6)

Posted on Wednesday, Jan 7th 2015

Sramana Mitra: Did you take some time off then?

Morris Miller: I did. I took a little time off. I realized that it isn’t consistent with what I wanted to do at all. Then we started looking at different kinds of deals. We invested in a medical startup. That was my first really big investment after that. It was a company called CardioSpectra. It had some interesting technology to help cardiologists figure out the correct treatment for patients with heart disease. Within 18 months, we ended up growing that company and selling it. It was a huge success. >>>

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Thought Leaders in Healthcare IT: Torben Nielsen, Co-Founder of HealthSparq (Part 6)

Posted on Wednesday, Jan 7th 2015

Sramana Mitra: Tell me what you think about industry movements, trends, and open problems.

Torben Nielsen: One of the things that I see as a major opportunity is that we, as a company, work very closely with health plans in providing that shopping experience. You can see treatment cost. You can see your benefit levels and out-of-pocket cost. One of the most fundamental things of an e-commerce site is that there’s a transaction. There’s instant gratification. We are just starting to move into that direction where you can actually purchase and say, “Based on these prices, I want this treatment at this hospital.”

If there’s a way to actually purchase that service at that price point and then embed the hospital delivery system into that overall experience, then you become much more e-commerce like and you start rounding out the overall shopping experience. It actually becomes a transactional >>>

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Disinfecting Hospitals, Impacting Healthcare: Morris Miller, CEO of Xenex (Part 5)

Posted on Tuesday, Jan 6th 2015

Sramana Mitra: You funded these other founders who came up with the concept of Rackspace. That’s how you got involved with Rackspace?

Morris Miller: That’s how I got involved, yes.

Sramana Mitra: Did you actually take an operational role or were you just an investor in Rackspace?

Morris Miller: Part of their deal with me was we would coach them. It was written into the contract that we would help and support them. Every Tuesday afternoon, we’d meet them for lunch. We’ll be there just to solve problems with them because I have been through a lot of these things in the legal publishing business, so it was helpful to them and it was a lot of fun for me. What started off as a one-morning-a-week became a morning and an afternoon. Then it became morning and afternoon the next day. Finally, I moved my office above theirs because I really wanted them to have the joy of running the startup. >>>

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Thought Leaders in Healthcare IT: Torben Nielsen, Co-Founder of HealthSparq (Part 5)

Posted on Tuesday, Jan 6th 2015

Torben Nielsen: We actually got covered by Forrester Research back in 2012 on a 17-page research study. The study explored how Regence had managed to crack the transparency code and how we’ve managed to create an integrated experience for members where they could feel more like shoppers. The day that report was published, I went to management and said, “Spin us off as a company because we think there’s an opportunity here to take what we’ve created just for 2 million members, take it out to a national audience, and start selling it to health plans. Two years later, we got the funding for 12 employees. Twelve brave souls went over to a different building back in 2012. Today, we are 175.

Sramana Mitra: So it’s a corporate incubation spin-off, almost.

Torben Nielsen: Yes, it is.
>>>

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Disinfecting Hospitals, Impacting Healthcare: Morris Miller, CEO of Xenex (Part 4)

Posted on Monday, Jan 5th 2015

Sramana Mitra: This is a time frame when the Internet is starting to happen. What happens next?

Morris Miller: For the year after the sale, you become an indentured service where you have to stay around because the acquirer wants to know that there’s going to be a complete transfer of knowledge. But they don’t want you interacting with the employees much because they want the employees to become loyal to the new owners. This guy on my advisory board  asked me what I want to do. I told him, “I’d like to work on some Internet related stuff.” >>>

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