Bryan Schielke 0:00

Well, thanks again for joining, Justin. I really appreciate it and uh looking forward to chatting with you here for a few minutes.

Justin Kahn 0:06

My pleasure, Brian. Thanks for having me on.

Bryan Schielke 0:08

We'll jump right in here and uh get into the questions and uh hear about your experience. So you built companies in healthcare, insurance, and telemedicine long before many people fully understood those industries. What gave you conviction early on?

Justin Kahn 0:22

I think I was the guy who was a little too dumb to listen to other people tell me that I couldn't do something in these fields. I was told time and time again when I was starting True Clinic that it was a good idea, but I wasn't the guy because I didn't have healthcare or technology experience. I think that kind of put a chip on my shoulder in the early days to make this work or make True Clinic work. And through the hiring of a very good select uh group of team members who were very forward thinking, we were able to build that company, acquire a company along the way, and then get acquired a couple of times along the way before eventually being acquired by Teledoc.

Bryan Schielke 1:17

That's amazing. Yeah, tell tell me I can't do it and I'll go do it, right?

Justin Kahn 1:21

Yes, sir.

Bryan Schielke 1:22

Love that. Fantastic. All right, let's jump into the next one here. True Clinic was eventually acquired by Teledoc. Looking back, what were the biggest lessons from scaling and exiting a healthcare startup?

Justin Kahn 1:34

It took a lot longer than I thought it was going to, and it was a lot more difficult than I thought it would be. One thing I would say is that True Clinic was acquired by a company called Intouch Health. And then a year later, the combination of True Clinic and Intouch Health's platform, which they kind of deemed as the whole person health, was that was what was acquired by Teledoc. And that happened right before the the pandemic. I thank my lucky stars that I got out when what when we did. Teledoc's infrastructure was really able to help the company grow much more than we were able to do so on our own. True Clinic had the same problem. And when it was acquired by InTouch, there were still gaps in the areas of care that they could provide. And when they were acquired by Teledoc, it really gave both of the companies access to a huge part of the market that we were able to capitalize on and be able to expand the platform in a variety of different directions that neither one of the companies could do on their own. I think the biggest lesson learned is that opportunities come and go and market dynamics can shift very rapidly. We were fortunate that when the companies were acquired, there was a really growing need for telemedicine capabilities because of the COVID pandemic. And that really set us up for a solid position of success. That changed very quickly. The stock at one point was $200 plus. I think the stock trades now a little over $7. So it just goes to show you that when the opportunities come and present themselves, you need to be ready and able to capitalize on them and make sure that you don't miss the boat.

Bryan Schielke 3:50

Absolutely. Great timing. Fantastic. Appreciate that. All right. We'll jump into the next one here. You often talk about businesses creating both social impact and financial success. How do you balance mission with profitability as a founder?

Justin Kahn 4:06

Mission is life's mission. And companies are the opportunity to put that mission into practice. With the the company that I'm involved with now, Precision Medicine, I was fortunate enough to meet the founder early on in the company's growth and life cycle. And I have been fortunate enough to watch this company just be a juggernaut of growth. And it's a juggernaut of growth because it was there to meet the market demand and to capture the opportunity where traditional healthcare has a blind spot. And because of that blind spot, COVID really kind of opened up the opportunity to the masses. But now that we're seeing patients taking their healthcare decisions more into their own control, in the sense of being able to try different options that maybe their primary care provider may not be educated in or may not be willing to go down the path with their patient on. And so patients now being able to look to companies that will talk to them about their conditions, be able to prescribe medications to meet the needs of those particular patients, and being part of precision, being able to fulfill those prescriptions and ship them directly to the patient's home is a good example of looking at an opportunity where it's something that people want and need and are looking for a quality solution to be able to meet their need. And I find that when you can marry the social impact, like does it have a real social impact? Is this something that people want and are willing to pay for and are willing to pay for for a long period of time? And can we create businesses that meet those needs and that adapt with the the market needs over over time? I feel like TrueClinic was a great example of that. And I feel like Precision Medicine is the best example of that that I've ever had the privilege of being involved with.

Bryan Schielke 6:40

That's amazing. Well, thanks for that. That's a that's a perfect example. I appreciate that. You're currently building multiple ventures at once. How do you decide which opportunities are worth pursuing and which ideas to let go of?

Justin Kahn 6:53

Well, uh profitability and revenue generation is usually the the number one reason. Like uh we'll use Behavior Labs and Reefer as the example of one to let go of. I thought that cannabis use required a level of insurance protection. I raised money, I brought in a recruited a top-tier team to go out and really pursue this business model, and it fell flat on its face candidly. We tried a variety of different ways to make it happen: insurance models, legal service plans. We tried different ways of marketing, and what we found was that at the time, the price point of the insurance product versus where the consumer is going to spend their dollar if it's on cannabis or on insurance, right? We learned some lessons there. And eventually we just had to say this is not something that meets the market demand right now. It's not bringing in the type of capital that it needs to bring in to sustain it long term. And so we made the decision to sunset the business. And I would just say that that that happens, right? The more swings you take at that, the more you're going to have businesses that that fail. But if your averages are better on the the that you're you have some winners, more winners than losers, then you know it's a really fun game to play. And and I've really enjoyed that part of entrepreneurship. It's not just the wins, it's also the losses, because you learn a lot from the losses.

Bryan Schielke 8:53

Absolutely. That makes sense. Learn fast, right? Love it. That's fantastic. All right. Great example. A lot of your work focuses on reducing friction in healthcare and financial protection. Why do you think so many industries still overlook user experience?

Justin Kahn 9:09

I think it's because they follow processes and they don't break their conceptions, especially when market dynamics start to change. You know, AI, large language models, like that's the newest example of this, but it's something that happens to companies time and time again. I mean, my whole reason for starting True Clinic back before telemedicine and video conferencing was really a thing was I wanted a doctor to be able to see me having a seizure in real time because I didn't know I was having seizures. I just knew I was like having panic attacks. And then weeks later, I'd be in a doctor's office trying to explain what had happened. And it just, I couldn't, I couldn't communicate it. So I wanted a doctor to be able to see me through a video, through a webcam, right? Like while I was actually having the episode. That was the whole reason for starting that that company. I think when a company is established, it's a lot harder to look at at what the new problems are and say, how do we solve them? Because they're still trying to solve the problems that they were solving when they originally started the business in the first place. And that's what I think makes the the opportunity for entrepreneurship so awesome and so continuous, is that there's always a way to look at a problem and say, well, here are the current solutions. If I could have my own canvas, what would I do differently? And that can be the basis for something awesome.

Bryan Schielke 10:52

That's fantastic. I love it. Well, and and again, using your your your personal experience and your need, right? That's fantastic. Well, glad that worked out. That is that is very cool. All right. Looks like last question here. We'll jump into it. You've reinvented yourself multiple times as an entrepreneur. What mindset helps you keep evolving instead of staying comfortable?

Justin Kahn 11:11

Always be learning. I mean, I've always said I don't think I'm a very smart person, but I'm fascinated by by what people are doing and where technology goes and where gaps exist. And I like to look at a problem from as many angles and considerations as I as I can. And oftentimes I can talk myself out of things just by looking at it from different perspectives. Any advice I would give to an entrepreneur, especially with where technology is these days, is there's nothing that you cannot be taught. And there is nothing that you cannot use technology to further your knowledge, experience, ideations, considerations. So it really just comes down to a continuous level of effort and a willingness to always be learning and questioning what you learned in the past.

Bryan Schielke 12:17

Love that. That is awesome. Well, uh obviously you're you continue to make big bets and good bets and you know, get the wins and and learn from the the ones that don't. So yeah, I love it.