EP 575: Fruitstreet Raises $6m From 180 Customers for HealthTech, New Kind of VC with CEO Laurence Girard

Laurence Girard. He's the CEO and founder of Fruit Street. He was a pre-med student at Harvard University Extension School for three years before he decided to pursue Fruit Street full-time and move to San Francisco. In high school, he played soccer for the New York Red Bulls Academy as a goalkeeper, which sparked his initial interest in health. Later, he decided to pursue a career focused on social impact and spent a year volunteering in an emergency room unit in Huntington Hospital, Long Island. He's now exclusively focused in Fruit Street.

Famous Five:

• Favorite Book? – The Science of Growth
• What CEO do you follow? – Milton Chen
• Favorite online tool? — eShares
• Do you get 8 hours of sleep?— 5 out of 7 days
• If you could let your 20-year old self, know one thing, what would it be? – Laurence would tell himself to put significant emphasis on the team when you are starting a company

Time Stamped Show Notes:

• 01:25 – Nathan introduces Laurence to the show
• 02:10 – Fruit Street is a telemedicine software product that is licensed to healthcare professionals
• • 02:19 – Fruit Street allows professionals to do HIPAA compliant video consultations with their client
  • 02:32 – Each patient has their personal info integrated with gadgets like Fitbit
  • 02:48 – Fruit Street uses a SaaS model and the professionals will pay a monthly licensing fee
• 03:09 – MRR is $15K
• 03:15 – Fruit Street was launched in May 2014
• 03:33 – Average customer pay per month is $200 for the software
• 03:43 – Fruit Street is starting to expand to get enterprise customers
• 03:57 – Current customer number is around a hundred
• 04:10 – 2016 total revenue
• 04:37 – Gross customer churn
• 05:30 – Current LTV
• 06:00 – Team size is 9 full time and Fruit Street has a joint venture agreement with Vsee
• 06:33 – Fruit Street is located in New York, and San Francisco
• 06:51 – Laurence wanted Fruit Street to be funded by physicians and not VC firms
• • 07:00 – Getting the feedback from the physicians would help Fruit Street to improve
  • 07:17 – Physicians can get Fruit Street more customers
  • 07:29 – "Fruit Street is actually a public-benefit corporation"
• 08:08 – There is no tax benefit in being a public-benefit corporation
• 08:26 – Laurence wanted to attract investors that are primarily motivated by social impact and not by the financial outcome
• 08:54 – Fruit Street reached out to physicians through LinkedIn advertising
• • 09:00 – Fruit Street gave the physicians a one-on-one call using Fruit Street's telemedicine software
• 09:18 – Fruit Street's lawyer is using eShares to manage their cap table
• 09:47 – Fruit Street has a structure that allows them to make quick decisions
• 10:00 – Fruit Street has 180 shareholders that are not in a syndicate
• 11:45 – The Famous Five

3 Key Points:

• With new technology comes the advancement in telehealth, making it easier for patients to reach out to their physicians.
• Choose an investor that shares the same vision as you.
• Put a significant emphasis on the team you build when you are starting your business.

Resources Mentioned:

• Acuity Scheduling – Nathan uses Acuity to schedule his podcast interviews and appointments
• Drip – Nathan uses Drip's email automation platform and visual campaign builder to build his sales funnel
• Toptal – Nathan found his development team using Toptal for his new business Send Later. He was able to keep 100% equity and didn't have to hire a co-founder due to the quality of Toptal
• Host Gator – The site Nathan uses to buy his domain names and hosting for the cheapest price possible.
• Audible – Nathan uses Audible when he's driving from Austin to San Antonio (1.5-hour drive) to listen to audio books.
• The Top Inbox – The site Nathan uses to schedule emails to be sent later, set reminders in inbox, track opens, and follow-up with email sequences
• Jamf – Jamf helped Nathan keep his Macbook Air 11" secure even when he left it in the airplane's back seat pocket
• Freshbooks – Nathan doesn't waste time so he uses Freshbooks to send out invoices and collect his money. Get your free month NOW
• Show Notes provided by Mallard Creatives