Triangle Tweener Talks

00:00:03 - Joy Bhosai
You know, it's not easy being starting a startup. It's hard work. It's hard work. It's like blood, sweat, tears. It's worth it though. But it's amazing to see somebody use a product that you don't even know. You don't know who they are, but they're loving it and it's just, it just feels good, you know, that we're helping them out. Welcome to Triangle Tweener Talks, a weekly podcast by Builders for Builders where we explore the startup journey from the idea to the exit and all the lessons in between. With an exclusive focus on founders from the Triangle region of North Carolina. Tweenertalks is produced by Earfluence. Now here is your host, serial founder and general partner of the Triangle Tweener Fund, Scott Wingo.

00:00:52 - Scot Wingo
Welcome to this episode of the Triangle tweener talks featuring Dr. Joy Bai, CEO and founder of Pluto Health. This episode is sponsored by bank of America. Bank of America's Transformation Transformative technology group helps game changing tech businesses and founders realize their boldest ambitions across a wide range of technology sectors. Smashing Boxes, a Durham based lean design centric digital transformation company. Robinson Bradshaw, a full service business law firm with a passion for supporting the Triangle entrepreneurial ecosystem. Also special thanks to our friends at Earfluence for their help producing this podcast, both the audio and video. Joy grew up with a passion for helping people. She harnessed that passion to become a doctor and moved to the Triangle to complete her residency at Duke. While at Duke, she fell in love with the idea of technology improving the patient experience and health outcomes. Even though she occasionally still sees patients, she left that field and founded Pluto Health where they are working to close healthcare gaps for patients. In this discussion, Joy takes us through the lows like raising capital during COVID and the highs. She cleverly calls this up and down of starting a the Rocket Coaster. Here is my discussion with Dr. Joy Bai, founder and CEO of Pluto Help. I always like to start at the beginning. You know, I've met you kind of at your current journey where you are the CEO and founder of Pluto Health and Betweener Funds and investor, which is how we met. I saw you pitch at an event and I was like holy cow, how did I not hear about this startup. We want to. I think I grabbed you at the event and pulled you aside and said we want to invest. And you said sure. So thanks for that.

00:02:33 - Joy Bhosai
Thank you.

00:02:34 - Scot Wingo
But I want to hear the backstory, so let's go all the way back. Are you from the. Are you from North Carolina.

00:02:40 - Joy Bhosai
I'm actually not. I'm from a. What used to be a small town in central California, so named Clovis. And that. That's my hometown. It's. We call it the Gateway to the Sierra. So not typically your San Francisco or LA that you think about when you think of California. But yeah, I grew up in the Central Valley.

00:03:01 - Scot Wingo
Cool. And then where did you. Did you know when you were young that you wanted to be an entrepreneur?

00:03:06 - Joy Bhosai
You know, I think I was kind of. I was raised in a household that was somewhat unique. And so it was kind of always the spirit of developing new things and making things better was always there. So, for instance, my parents immigrated from Thailand and they started. My dad tinkered with starting like an auto body shop for early days. Didn't go so well because he's so kind and kept giving stuff away. And then my mom, who's a nurse practitioner, decided that they would start nursing homes for adults with intellectual disabilities who were given up to the state because she saw that there was a huge need to take better care of patients.

00:03:50 - Scot Wingo
And your dad joined in that.

00:03:51 - Joy Bhosai
And my dad joined in that because, you know, he's got a heart of gold and knows how to organize. And so my mom basically was like, okay, let's do this. Let's start nursing homes and give people a better experience and families peace of mind that their loved ones are going to be taken care of. Well, so not having much money, we lived in the very first nursing home my mom started, and it grew into a chain, a small chain in the region. But early on, ever since I was little, I remember just being part of the building process. So I think it was always part of the DNA. Yeah, yeah.

00:04:33 - Scot Wingo
Now, did they raise you just kind of English straight, or did they want you to keep in touch with the culture of Thailand?

00:04:40 - Joy Bhosai
Yeah, actually, English technically is my second language, but obviously, I mean, throughout the years, ever since starting kindergarten, you know.

00:04:51 - Scot Wingo
If you don't use it, it kind of fades away.

00:04:52 - Joy Bhosai
Yeah, it does.

00:04:53 - Scot Wingo
Yeah. Interesting. Did you get back to Thailand a lot during that time or.

00:04:57 - Joy Bhosai
Yes, yes, yes. So my entire family, except my parents and my sister, live in the United States or live in Thailand, and we're the only ones in the US So.

00:05:08 - Scot Wingo
Lots of going back to see.

00:05:09 - Joy Bhosai
Yeah, every year, aunts and uncles and.

00:05:12 - Scot Wingo
Cousins and all that stuff.

00:05:13 - Joy Bhosai
I get to eat delicious food every other year. Natural environment.

00:05:19 - Scot Wingo
Yeah. So where would you scale American Thai versus now? You're in California, which is probably of the American. Thai is pretty good. You know, North Carolina Thai is Probably challenging.

00:05:28 - Joy Bhosai
Yeah. Yeah. You know, I found. I've found a few places that I like and a few places with some authentic dishes. I mean, obviously you can't beat what's. What's at home country. So they've just got the fresh herbs and everything there.

00:05:42 - Scot Wingo
Yeah, it's never the same.

00:05:43 - Joy Bhosai
Yeah. Cool.

00:05:44 - Scot Wingo
So you grew up in Central California and then where'd you go to college?

00:05:47 - Joy Bhosai
I went to Pomona College, which is a liberal arts college in Southern California. Most people know about it as one of the five C Claremont McKenna colleges. So it's a group of small liberal arts colleges in Southern California.

00:06:02 - Scot Wingo
Yeah. And what'd you study there?

00:06:04 - Joy Bhosai
I studied true to like my spirit of wanting to know and learn all the things. So I double majored. I couldn't decide between anthropology on one hand and neuroscience on the other, so I studied both.

00:06:21 - Scot Wingo
Wow.

00:06:22 - Joy Bhosai
Yeah.

00:06:22 - Scot Wingo
Do you end up with a double major type situation? Awesome.

00:06:24 - Joy Bhosai
Yeah.

00:06:25 - Scot Wingo
Yeah. So you're, you're, you know, that tells me you're intellectually curious. You probably. There was probably a third one and you just like realized you couldn't fit it in there.

00:06:33 - Joy Bhosai
Intellectually curious or really naive and wanted just to. Didn't realize how much work it would involve, but yeah.

00:06:41 - Scot Wingo
Yeah. It makes you very good at time management when you overload yourself like that.

00:06:45 - Joy Bhosai
Yeah.

00:06:45 - Scot Wingo
Okay, so then you graduated from there and then where'd you go next?

00:06:49 - Joy Bhosai
I was granted the opportunity to go on a Fulbright scholarship to study patterns of access to care for patients affected by cancer in Thailand. So I did a Fulbright scholarship for the year and lived in a rural part in Thailand for the year after college.

00:07:09 - Scot Wingo
Cool. And that's like a. Sounds like a full ride kind of a thing in a post grad type of a. Like a one year type of thing.

00:07:17 - Joy Bhosai
Yeah.

00:07:17 - Scot Wingo
Was that tied to a public health department somewhere, a college, or is a separate thing?

00:07:21 - Joy Bhosai
Yeah, it was with the National Cancer Institute in Thailand.

00:07:25 - Scot Wingo
Ah, okay. Interesting.

00:07:26 - Joy Bhosai
Yeah.

00:07:27 - Scot Wingo
Cool. Then where'd you go from there?

00:07:29 - Joy Bhosai
From there I actually so from there I went to Yale for public health school. So my mph or as you said earlier, miles per hour degree. And so I studied global health and then in their health management sector, which is a really cool program. It was a hybrid between the business school and the public health school. It's all about how to manage and manage health work and management in health systems, but also with an eye on health policy.

00:08:01 - Scot Wingo
Yeah. Imagine going from California to Thailand to Connecticut was like a lot of these three very different environments.

00:08:08 - Joy Bhosai
They were, they were very different Connecticut.

00:08:11 - Scot Wingo
I lived in Connecticut for a while. And it was too cold for this South Carolina person. Were you freaked out by how cold it was?

00:08:17 - Joy Bhosai
I didn't realize it until I was in the thick of it.

00:08:19 - Scot Wingo
Okay.

00:08:20 - Joy Bhosai
So there was one day I was walking to class and my hair froze and I was like, this place is way too, too cold for me.

00:08:28 - Scot Wingo
That was my reaction as well. We got out of there as fast as we could.

00:08:30 - Joy Bhosai
Yeah.

00:08:31 - Scot Wingo
So you did. Is that like a year and a half, two year program? A year.

00:08:34 - Joy Bhosai
Two year, yeah.

00:08:35 - Scot Wingo
Does it have a thesis? Did you write a thesis?

00:08:37 - Joy Bhosai
Yeah, I actually wrote. Well, it was more of a practicum, but my focus was global health management, so it was looking at initiatives that were being run abroad. So I worked with the Clinton foundation with their Ethiopia Hospital administrative program. So looking at how to run different programs in global settings.

00:09:05 - Scot Wingo
Nice.

00:09:05 - Joy Bhosai
Yeah.

00:09:06 - Scot Wingo
How much did you, living in a facility like you did tie into this? I can kind of see the connective tissue now.

00:09:11 - Joy Bhosai
You know, I've always had a deep appreciation of how complex the experience of health is. It's not just that interaction with a clinic or a doctor. Like so, for instance, when the folks that we were taking care of at the homes would come back from the doctors, it would be interactions with people dispensing the meds, understanding the care teams, the nurses, everybody understanding what needed to happen. And so it's a very complex experience. Obviously, the way patients experience are very different as well. Right. And so I've always appreciated that the experience of health is so unique to every person.

00:09:58 - Scot Wingo
Yeah, yeah.

00:09:59 - Joy Bhosai
Even if you have the same doctor or same insurance plan, so they're.

00:10:03 - Scot Wingo
We can get this labor. They're never in sync.

00:10:05 - Joy Bhosai
Yeah, right, right.

00:10:07 - Scot Wingo
And they always want you to fill out endless forms, which is always delightful.

00:10:09 - Joy Bhosai
True.

00:10:11 - Scot Wingo
So you finish your program at Yale, you've got a master's in public health or an mph. And then where'd you go then?

00:10:17 - Joy Bhosai
I went to medical school at University of California, San Francisco.

00:10:22 - Scot Wingo
Back to the West Coast.

00:10:23 - Joy Bhosai
Yes. Back home to California, where it's a fantastic program. I was part of the Global Health Pathways program, which is a five year program where you spend a year abroad. So traditional medicine. Fantastic focus on public health, simply because it's UCSF and there's a huge commitment to that there at the university. And then I lived in, worked and lived in Niger and Tanzania for my year.

00:10:55 - Scot Wingo
I was going to say Thailand, but you mix it up.

00:10:58 - Joy Bhosai
Yeah. Change continents. Yeah, yeah.

00:11:01 - Scot Wingo
And this is a very hot climate. So you're like the opposite of Connecticut.

00:11:04 - Joy Bhosai
Yeah.

00:11:04 - Scot Wingo
Your hair Was not going to freeze up there.

00:11:06 - Joy Bhosai
Very different. Yes. Yes.

00:11:09 - Scot Wingo
Yeah. How long is that? Like a four or five year program?

00:11:12 - Joy Bhosai
It's a five year program.

00:11:13 - Scot Wingo
Yeah. To. And then you graduated from that and you had your md. Did you do, like a. Does that give you a kind of a journalist MD or like, is there a specific.

00:11:23 - Joy Bhosai
Yeah, just. Yeah. MD and then you have a focused area in, like, health services. Mine was global health. It was actually where I was introduced to health tech. And so I've been ever since the first year of med school, have been in the health technology space. And it was brought on by a project that we were doing in the field where we received a grant to develop a mobile app to help us manage care for patients better in the field. And so my public health hat and anthropology hat was like, almost allergic to technology at the beginning because I was out there, like, thinking, we just need better access to basic resources like medicine and water. Why are we making a smartphone app? And this was like 2008, 2009, right. When the iPhone had just come out and everyone was obsessed with making apps. But that's kind of when I fell in love with developing software and technology in the healthcare sector.

00:12:27 - Scot Wingo
Yeah. Did you see people interacting with it? And that's kind of like when the light bulb went off that this is a path to solving some of these problems?

00:12:33 - Joy Bhosai
Yeah, absolutely. So just thinking through how to run clinics more efficiently, you know, we had crowded waiting rooms. We had people walking into the hospital who would spend five, six hours walking to get to the health center and then get turned away because of. For whatever reason it was crowded or there weren't enough doctors or the MRI machine was, you know, things like that. And so the exercise really became how do we make the experience better? By communicating virtually with patients and understanding how to optimize the workflow. And it was a new kind of experience for me in that you had to start from scratch and develop interventions that you thought would work but needed to test it out. And the really cool part was getting people not traditionally involved in healthcare excited about it and thinking that they can meaningfully make a difference. And so just seeing all of it come together was, like, a pretty cool experience.

00:13:39 - Scot Wingo
Yeah, very cool.

00:13:40 - Joy Bhosai
Yeah.

00:13:41 - Scot Wingo
Right. So then you finished that program and you were in San Francisco.

00:13:44 - Joy Bhosai
Yeah.

00:13:44 - Scot Wingo
Where'd you go from there?

00:13:47 - Joy Bhosai
I came to Duke, which landed me here in North Carolina finally.

00:13:51 - Scot Wingo
We ended up in North Carolina.

00:13:52 - Joy Bhosai
Yeah.

00:13:53 - Scot Wingo
And was that because. Was that to be a professor or work in a global health program at Duke?

00:13:58 - Joy Bhosai
It was to do my residency yeah, So I was looking for a residency experience that was focused on management as well. I mean, I was on this track to really want to work in health systems, solving big problems for patients, working with leadership, and I love, you know, establishing partnerships to make the experience better. So there were a couple programs in the country focusing on that, and so I was looking, and Duke was one of the very few. There's only a handful in the country, so.

00:14:36 - Scot Wingo
Interesting. Okay, so you come to Duke. So California, San Francisco to Duke.

00:14:41 - Joy Bhosai
Yeah.

00:14:42 - Scot Wingo
What was your impression of North Carolina?

00:14:45 - Joy Bhosai
Oh, I loved it. I love the weather. I was like, this is perfect. Everyone was so warm and friendly. I remember my first visit, someone said hi to me in the elevator, and actually it felt genuine. I was like, grabbing your purse. So I thought it was great. In the program director, everyone was just so sweet, and so I really enjoyed it.

00:15:10 - Scot Wingo
So that must have been. Is this 2009, 2010?

00:15:14 - Joy Bhosai
No, this was 2013. Okay.

00:15:17 - Scot Wingo
Yeah, I got it. Okay. So that was. The app was at the beginning of the. Okay.

00:15:20 - Joy Bhosai
Yeah.

00:15:22 - Scot Wingo
Okay. So then you get here to Duke, you do your residency, and then what would you end up doing?

00:15:27 - Joy Bhosai
Yeah, So I trained in internal medicine, and I've always wanted to be in hospital medicine. So at ucsf, I would say at the time, I think my class around 50% either go into primary care or hospital medicine. It's actually kind of where the origins of hospital medicine started. So have been a hospital medicine doctor ever since residency and have worked throughout the health system. The program I was in at Duke was called the Management and Leadership program. So that was an extended program where it was. It added an extra year to your residency, but allowed you to work with leaders in the space and in the. In the health system and work on different various projects. Quality improvement.

00:16:22 - Scot Wingo
Is it like one of those GE type things where they have this whole thing where over a period of time, you do, like a rotation through different parts to get exposure to the whole hospital system? Or is it.

00:16:31 - Joy Bhosai
Yeah. And then within that you can focus in certain areas.

00:16:35 - Scot Wingo
Yeah. So choose your own adventure kind of aspect.

00:16:38 - Joy Bhosai
Yeah, yeah.

00:16:39 - Scot Wingo
Did you always gravitate back to the global side or did you get interested or were you, like, now starting to get interested in health tech?

00:16:46 - Joy Bhosai
I was actually doing rotations both in global health and health systems. I think it's always been doubling up. Yeah, it's always been part of that. I was actually the associate director of Global Health Innovations and Care. So, you know, it's always part of how do we apply technology and innovation and solve problems for Folks, So, okay, cool.

00:17:10 - Scot Wingo
And then you're you. Somewhere in here, you're going to found Pluto. Walk us through how, how we got from there from being in the residency program at Duke.

00:17:19 - Joy Bhosai
Yeah, yeah, it was kind of funny. I initially didn't think about starting Pluto as a startup at all.

00:17:25 - Scot Wingo
Right.

00:17:26 - Joy Bhosai
So it was just something that I felt that needed to be developed. One of the problems I would say in healthcare is making. It's always about making the patient experience better, right. And there was a time where regulation had just passed a few years ago that enables patients and technology companies to unlock data from the once very siloed. I would argue that still is health systems all across the nation and also electronic medical record systems. So once it looks like those policies were in place and regulation had changed, I thought it was ripe time to rethink how we engage with patients and understand their health histories to point them to the right resources. So take for example, at Duke, they take care of transplant patients, they do trials, they take care of patients, highly complex patients that see specialists from all over the nation. Sometimes where, you know, at Duke you get your second or third opinion after someone says, you know, this is too complicated. So a big problem is understanding the patient history and what's done and then figuring out how to meaningfully affect net new for the patient. And sometimes they also need access to clinical trials. And I felt like the experience was highly disjointed. And then at the same time, one of my dear friends, his mother in law was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer and they're over on the west coast and my friend Noah, so his mother in law was diagnosed and they were trying to find her clinical trial and he gave me a call and they're like, well, how do we even go about this? And you know, a trusted resource is going on a website called ClinicalTrials.gov and just mining it, mining it, trying to find her some. But unfortunately the experience of finding a trial was not great for them. You know, she would present at one place, it'd be complicated, Present at another place, it was complicated. And it just made me think, we've got to make this experience so much better for people. And one of the biggest challenges was like that I see for patients trying to get into a trial that could potentially extend their life or save their life is a huge delay in accessing their medical records to see if they qualify for a trial. So to me, there was this problem of delayed access to medical records and health histories, but also not understanding how to organize and present that meaningfully for folks. So I started thinking through, okay, what is a better patient experience? And so part of it is, well, if somebody knows my health history and they know where I've been, what, what needs to happen, they know my conditions, is there a way that resources are. Can be presented back to me meaningfully without me, the patient having to do all the work? And so that was the start of thinking through as a software person.

00:20:56 - Scot Wingo
It seems like you should have your own cloud and like, you can like pull things in from, you know, if I went to these three hospital systems that are on different systems, I don't care about that. I can have my own cloud.

00:21:05 - Joy Bhosai
Right.

00:21:06 - Scot Wingo
Then I can say I can give someone the permission to see my cloud and then pull it back if I want to. Yeah. It doesn't work anything like that.

00:21:14 - Joy Bhosai
No, no. It's just so disjointed right now.

00:21:17 - Scot Wingo
There's like all these portals and they're hard to get into and they're hard to understand as the consumer. And sometimes there's stuff you can't see in there. It's just like. Really? Yeah, it's a mess.

00:21:27 - Joy Bhosai
Yeah. And oftentimes in healthcare and medicine, you're not even allowed to make a specialist appointment until you have your records sent over. And so it can lead to significant delays for people.

00:21:39 - Scot Wingo
Yeah. Is this like, most of these records are faxed or like, how are they?

00:21:43 - Joy Bhosai
They're faxed.

00:21:44 - Scot Wingo
Yeah.

00:21:44 - Joy Bhosai
Mostly, sadly.

00:21:45 - Scot Wingo
Yeah.

00:21:46 - Joy Bhosai
Sometimes there's a portal to portal communication, but, you know, just having gone through this myself, like, because I am, you know, far along in pregnancy, despite the EMRs being connected or portals happening, offices still request you to fax the records. It's kind of insane.

00:22:06 - Scot Wingo
Yeah. Part of the world's like building AI agents to get rid of paper and scan PDFs, and you guys are faxing way back here.

00:22:14 - Joy Bhosai
Yeah.

00:22:16 - Scot Wingo
Okay. So you had this. You knew there needed to be a better solution and then you said, I'm going to build them. Was there something that finally got you off the. That got you, like, I need to start a company?

00:22:28 - Joy Bhosai
I think it was just the time pressure of the regulation changing, the technology accelerating so quickly. And then as well, just seeing the speed at which we had to execute and build kind of lended itself naturally to spin out of the university because you want to iterate and release versions so quickly, it's hard to. Unless you're, you know, a scrappy startup, basically because there's less red tape. And I think part of it was also finding high, like, highly talented individuals to help from all over the nation who are committed to, you know, this cause. So it was like, it was. It was natural that, like, oh, we've actually got to start an organization that doesn't. That is. That lives outside of the academic walls.

00:23:27 - Scot Wingo
Yeah. So was this, like, through the tech transfer part of Duke, or you just decided, I'm going to take a leave of absence and do this?

00:23:34 - Joy Bhosai
It was a bit of both. So I really wanted to work with Duke in it and they were great. I mean, there's lots of nuances there, but they were pretty supportive. Lots of finding out what we needed to do. Yeah.

00:23:51 - Scot Wingo
The Duke. I'm not a tech transfer expert, but I've kind of brushed up against them at all three universities. And the Duke invest a ton in, like, resources for the entrepreneurs that are coming out that may be now, I don't know, back when you did it. But that's really interesting where they almost like, have a support mechanism for. Because they have so many MDs and scientists coming out, they almost kind of. They know that they're not going to know. Here's the difference between an S Corp and an llc. Here's how you find a lawyer. Here's some, you know, team building. Here's an option pool. Like, a lot of that basic stuff you've. You've probably never taken a class on that. So.

00:24:25 - Joy Bhosai
Yeah.

00:24:26 - Scot Wingo
You've had to learn it. Yeah. As you go.

00:24:29 - Joy Bhosai
I feel like that's the theme of entrepreneurship is learning as you go. Yeah, yeah, definitely.

00:24:35 - Scot Wingo
Yeah. So did they help you with that or you just kind of figured it out on your own?

00:24:39 - Joy Bhosai
It was, I would say it was a blend of both.

00:24:41 - Scot Wingo
Yeah.

00:24:42 - Joy Bhosai
Yeah. I would say a lot of the learnings I had to lean on a founder network like Friends as well do, you know, helped as much as they. They could and certainly laid some of the foundation there.

00:24:56 - Scot Wingo
Yeah. So, yeah, people think you were crazy because you'd gone to school for like, I forget the count, but it's a long time. 10, at least 10 years in there.

00:25:05 - Joy Bhosai
Yeah.

00:25:05 - Scot Wingo
Maybe longer. And then you're going to go, you know, obviously Pluto Health is in the. The spectrum of what you studied, but most people expect you to be a happy doctor and just do the doctor thing for, you know, and hang up the stethoscope at some point.

00:25:19 - Joy Bhosai
Yeah.

00:25:20 - Scot Wingo
Did folks think you were a little crazy for doing that?

00:25:24 - Joy Bhosai
I'm sure some people think so. I mean, I haven't completely hung up the stethoscope. I see it as kind of this natural progression of my weirdness and not Inability to pick topics. So I think, you know, I still, like, last weekend I was working a hospital shift because I just love seeing patients. I love medicine.

00:25:46 - Scot Wingo
Is that something you have to do also to keep your certification fresh?

00:25:50 - Joy Bhosai
Yeah, yeah.

00:25:50 - Scot Wingo
So it's like two birds with one stone kind of thing.

00:25:52 - Joy Bhosai
Yeah. But, you know, even if I was like, cashed out and was like a billionaire, whatever, I would still be a doctor. Like, I would still see patients. So there's just a love and appreciation for clinical medicine. And I absolutely love the teamwork of the hospital, you know, like being in the hospital, things like that. But part of it is like, I think to make decent tech in healthcare, it helps to have a clinical background. And I see it as part of my job. So it's certainly there. I can't even tell you how many shifts I've come out of and turn back to the team and be like, wouldn't it be great if we did this? Or like, let's improve the patient experience. We organize meds this way. So I actually think it's helped us build a better product. And so it is something I love, but it's. I've somehow fitted in as part of my job as well.

00:26:49 - Scot Wingo
Yeah, it's kind of. It's. It's a research. Right. So it's. Yeah, that's the third thing it solves. You like doing it. You know, it keeps you certified and able to practice. And then it also is basically industry research to make sure. Because it goes slow. But I'm sure when you go, you're like, oh, I didn't know that Duke had this now. Or like, you see small improvements, you're like, okay, good to know about this, that and the other.

00:27:10 - Joy Bhosai
Yeah. Or like, patients really need this. Or this is a huge pain point for the health, you know, like health systems in general. I guess the anthropologist me would. They'd call it participant observation. So, yeah, definitely. Research for the product.

00:27:25 - Scot Wingo
Yeah. Have you seen someone use your product in the wild?

00:27:28 - Joy Bhosai
I have. And randomly.

00:27:30 - Scot Wingo
A very strange experience.

00:27:31 - Joy Bhosai
It's so wild.

00:27:32 - Scot Wingo
They don't do what you think they're going to do. It's so frustrating. It is darn users.

00:27:36 - Joy Bhosai
Well, it's a good exercise. You know what's been really fantastic, though, is like, sometimes, you know, it's not easy being starting a startup. It's hard work. It's hard work. It's like blood, sweat, tears. It's worth it though. But it's amazing to see somebody use a product that you don't even know. You don't Know who they are, but they're. They're loving it. And it's just a crazy, like, it just feels good, you know, that we're helping them out.

00:28:06 - Scot Wingo
So. Yeah, it's amazing.

00:28:07 - Joy Bhosai
Yeah.

00:28:08 - Scot Wingo
You learn so much from those interactions. Like seeing how people are actually using the software. It's. Yeah. You wish you could, like, do the whole classroom, but like, if I've looked at doing that and it's always like $200,000, like, I think I'll just go look for more serendipitous opportunities to do this. So what year did you found Pluto?

00:28:26 - Joy Bhosai
So technically it was founded late 2020, so really call it 2021. And then we officially started commercializing around mid-2022.

00:28:40 - Scot Wingo
And when you say commercializing, that's like selling to customers or you're officially Duke at that point.

00:28:44 - Joy Bhosai
Yeah. Official non pilot. You know, we were out in market.

00:28:51 - Scot Wingo
Did you. So in. So 2020 is a weird year to start because it was the COVID year and I'm sure you were tangled up and all that. Did that. Did Covid delay your plans or you. It just kind of a little bit.

00:29:03 - Joy Bhosai
Yeah. As a hospital medicine doctor, it was. You can't leave your team in the middle of a pandemic. Right. You have colleagues who are calling out sick. It was just, you know, you couldn't.

00:29:15 - Scot Wingo
Yeah. So kind of get to the.

00:29:17 - Joy Bhosai
Yeah. Okay.

00:29:18 - Scot Wingo
So you get to the worst of COVID late 2020. How did you get funding? So did you get precede or seed in that kind of 2020 time frame? Fund it?

00:29:27 - Joy Bhosai
Yeah. Yeah. So we did well, kind of funded yourself, like building and like kind of bootstrapping for a bit. But we. We went for a pre seed round and pitch to a few funds. And then we were lucky in that A4 capital was our first lead. And so they're a pre seed fund out in the Bay Area. Based out in the Bay Area.

00:29:51 - Scot Wingo
Cool. And there was that from a connection you had or they just like they had a network or you just kind of stumbled into.

00:29:59 - Joy Bhosai
I stumbled. It was kind of funny because I stumbled onto their website. So I signed up to pitch, but then I realized the partner was a colleague of one of my dear friends. So it's kind of like a conglomeration of the two.

00:30:12 - Scot Wingo
Nice.

00:30:12 - Joy Bhosai
Yeah.

00:30:13 - Scot Wingo
A warm. You know, having someone kind of warm to receive your pitch always helps.

00:30:17 - Joy Bhosai
Yeah. Yeah, Definitely.

00:30:18 - Scot Wingo
Yeah. How did you like. So you probably never pitched before. So how is it like going. Starting. Going from being a doctor to being a pitcher, an entrepreneur pitching her idea.

00:30:28 - Joy Bhosai
I think it's still a muscle that will, you know, you always have to continue to build. But it was. It's very different. Right. Like, presenting on clinical rounds or academic presentation is very different than an investor pitch. And so there was a big learning curve of, like, how to pitch quickly and effectively and just get to the point quickly, things like that. So, yeah, I had to. I actually went online and tried to read as much as I can, watch as many pitches as I can, things like that.

00:30:59 - Scot Wingo
You're so. I've seen you pitch, and you're a natural storyteller. So you've got, like a. And you're. You're always calm. Like a lot of entrepreneurs, you're just, like. You can tell they're stressed out. You seem to. And maybe that's like the doctor thing. You've seen, like, all kinds of crazy stuff. So pitching is, like, you know, not as crazy as, like, doing a rotation in the ER or something. So. So you do a very good. And you're a good storyteller. So it's the storytelling, I think, that really draws people into a pitch of. A lot of people are very robotic. They're like, this is the team. This is the problem we solved. They're like. They think it's like this checklist that you go through, but, you know, that doesn't really land as much as someone that has a personal story of why they've done this. And when you. When you pitch, you can definitely. This is, like, pitch advice for people watching this. You can tell, like, you care about this down to, like, every fiber of your being. Right.

00:31:43 - Joy Bhosai
Thank you. Thank you.

00:31:44 - Scot Wingo
But you get that across just by your passion of it. Like, not saying, you know, I care about this with every fiber might be whatever you've done, it's effective.

00:31:52 - Joy Bhosai
They worked.

00:31:53 - Scot Wingo
Whatever videos you watched, they were good.

00:31:55 - Joy Bhosai
Thank you. No, I mean, I promise you, I'm still very nervous. It just doesn't show on the outside.

00:31:59 - Scot Wingo
You're good at it. That's good. That's a. That's a good skill, too.

00:32:02 - Joy Bhosai
Yeah.

00:32:03 - Scot Wingo
To hide your nervousness. And then back then, you were probably zoom pitching, too, right?

00:32:07 - Joy Bhosai
So that was only zoom pitching. Yeah, only zoom pitching.

00:32:10 - Scot Wingo
That's good and bad and that you didn't have to travel, but it's really hard to, you know, get people across the zoom screen, to kind of, like, feel what you're feeling.

00:32:19 - Joy Bhosai
Right.

00:32:19 - Scot Wingo
And it's hard to read them, too. You kind of see their eyes dart, and you're like, are they reading email or are they just, like, looking out the Window. Like, what's going on?

00:32:26 - Joy Bhosai
You never know. They could be looking at another screen.

00:32:29 - Scot Wingo
Yeah, they're looking at, you know, what are they doing?

00:32:30 - Joy Bhosai
Right.

00:32:31 - Scot Wingo
Okay. So you raised your pre seed round. Like, can you tell, like, what kind of range was did you guys raise in there? Is that like a million dollar kind of thing or.

00:32:38 - Joy Bhosai
It was two and it was two and a half.

00:32:41 - Scot Wingo
Two and a half. Okay. Yeah, yeah, cool. So that was 2020. So then did that get you all the way through to the commercialization in mid-2022, or did you need to raise another round in there?

00:32:51 - Joy Bhosai
It got us through the main pilots and iron out like, any, you know, anticipated hiccups or bugs and things like that. And then we raised a seed. A seed round that then closed about a year and a half later. Yeah, cool.

00:33:12 - Scot Wingo
Was that, you know, it makes it seem like the pre seed was relatively easy to raise. Was the. The seed?

00:33:17 - Joy Bhosai
It was not easy.

00:33:18 - Scot Wingo
It's not easy.

00:33:19 - Joy Bhosai
It's not. I mean, I don't. I think we pitched to like 40 to 50 funds. Lots and lots of no's. It was actually kind of funny. I was driving. So during COVID my husband and I moved. So we had an intermittent hiatus from North Carolina, where we lived in LA for a year because he had a position at ucla, a fellowship. And so we were driving cross country in our car. We didn't want to fly and get Covid as well. So I literally was pitching in my car with the virtual zoom background, stopping randomly at like a Shell gas station.

00:34:02 - Scot Wingo
Just take 40 all the way to the Highway 66.

00:34:06 - Joy Bhosai
I mean, we kind of did, like. So my husband used to be a mountain rescue emt, and so he really wanted to see the national park. So we kind of like went, you know, kind of zigzaggy.

00:34:16 - Scot Wingo
Yeah.

00:34:17 - Joy Bhosai
But yeah, if I had a pitch coming up, we would have to like, be like, up in 30 minutes. I need to be at a gas station and just like kind of start.

00:34:25 - Scot Wingo
You're like, looking for a good signal. Drive more over that way.

00:34:28 - Joy Bhosai
Yeah.

00:34:29 - Scot Wingo
Find a parking spot over there. Signals like twice as good.

00:34:31 - Joy Bhosai
Yeah, exactly.

00:34:32 - Scot Wingo
Things we do as entrepreneurs. And then you're trying to, like, stay totally cool. Like you're not on the car.

00:34:36 - Joy Bhosai
Cool as a cucumber. Don't even. They like, you know, so then you.

00:34:42 - Scot Wingo
Get someone to say yes. Who finally said yes.

00:34:44 - Joy Bhosai
Yeah, yeah.

00:34:45 - Scot Wingo
Who ended up leading that round.

00:34:49 - Joy Bhosai
The seed round.

00:34:50 - Scot Wingo
Yeah.

00:34:51 - Joy Bhosai
So is a combination of Asset Management Ventures, which is a nicely established healthcare early stage healthcare fund, and then as well Animo Ventures, which is more of a generalist fund. So they co led that one.

00:35:08 - Scot Wingo
Yeah. And was that. So you did two and a half before? Was I like four or five this time around? Yep, yep.

00:35:16 - Joy Bhosai
All right.

00:35:17 - Scot Wingo
And then that was in 2022. Yes, yes. So two years ago now.

00:35:23 - Joy Bhosai
Yep.

00:35:24 - Scot Wingo
Cool. How big was the team? Kind of at this point.

00:35:26 - Joy Bhosai
The team at the point was around eight to ten people.

00:35:30 - Scot Wingo
Yeah.

00:35:30 - Joy Bhosai
So.

00:35:31 - Scot Wingo
So being a non technologist, how did you go about? You, you're. You're. You're an MD that wants to build a technology product. How did you find your technology person? I get this question a lot.

00:35:41 - Joy Bhosai
Yeah. From.

00:35:42 - Scot Wingo
From mostly MBA people, but sometimes from. From docs as well.

00:35:46 - Joy Bhosai
I actually think that because I was working in this space before, like building the mobile app like in med school and just tinkering and helping out startups here and there, I really think I really leaned on the network. So for instance, I've been working with our mobile developer for 15. Over 15 years now. And he works at our company. He was actually the first engineer that worked with me on creating that app that we used in Tanzania. So we've been working together for.

00:36:17 - Scot Wingo
So he knew what he was getting into.

00:36:18 - Joy Bhosai
Oh yeah. And we knew how to work together. But I think for the rest of the team, it was really relying on our network. Like I obviously don't know everyone in this space. Right. It's so big, but I think referrals are huge. Right. It's always nice that to hire someone that someone else can vouch for as well.

00:36:40 - Scot Wingo
Okay, so at this point in the story, it's 2022, you've got fresh capital, 4 to 5 million, you're ready, your pilots are going pretty well, you're ready for commercialization. And it's just up and to the right from there, right?

00:36:54 - Joy Bhosai
Yeah, exactly. A straight line.

00:36:57 - Scot Wingo
It's never a straight. I cannot seem to start companies that have that. I envy the ones that do the open AIs of the world, but they also have like $10 billion to get them there. So that would make life a lot easier.

00:37:07 - Joy Bhosai
There's room, there's, there's. Yeah. I call it the roller rocket. So it's a roller coaster like this.

00:37:15 - Scot Wingo
Yeah.

00:37:16 - Joy Bhosai
But it's like going up. So it's like a roller rocket.

00:37:20 - Scot Wingo
Yeah. It's directionally up into the right, but sometimes there's downtrends. I don't know where this is going. I hope we get back on track.

00:37:26 - Joy Bhosai
Yeah, exactly.

00:37:28 - Scot Wingo
Yeah. Was that because once you started to sell it, you found out your MVP was missing something? Or it's just hard to find salespeople. Did you do the founder heroic sales thing for a while?

00:37:39 - Joy Bhosai
Oh, yeah. I mean, I'm still part of the sale. So one thing about us is we haven't actually even done outbound marketing, so it's been selling on its own. But like, yeah, I've definitely found online sales for a while. Part of the roller rocket I think is just natural of any startup is like you're trying to find product market fit and you're testing your thesis of like this is the right product market fit and then you get feedback from users or customers or patients or you know, what not.

00:38:11 - Scot Wingo
So yeah, the thing that always freaks me out as a software person about the health tech space and the reason I haven't gone into it so far is there's so many constituents. So you've got the patient, you've got the doctor, the hospital system, right. Maybe there's an EHR company in there, there's insurance and then there's usually some three letter acronym things in there. Like there's things between this and the insurance that has like a three letter acronym. And then, and everyone's like, oh, and don't forget these three. So usually there's somewhere between three and eight Stakeholders. Stakeholders. So give us the layman's. I'm the layman in this example of like, who do you sell to at Pluto Health? And obviously the patient is who we want to impact. But you don't sell to the patient, I imagine. Who all are you selling to in that ecosystem?

00:38:56 - Joy Bhosai
Yeah, absolutely. So Pluto Health is focused on closing care gaps for patients. So, you know, we take it upon ourselves to understand the patient's health history, understand where they've been, what they've been diagnosed with, and then work really hard to try to connect them to the right resources at the right time. So it's really taking a deep dive into the data, but appreciating that your care doesn't just stop because we know what the data says. Like we want to take the next step and help you address those care gaps. Meaning, for example, hey, you are missing your age appropriate mammogram or CT scan because you're at risk of lung cancer. We take the extra step of working with patients to get that done, to order that CT scan, finalize it, close the care gap. So our stakeholders that we sell to are enterprises and systems that work alongside us and are committed to closing those care gaps. Our initial customers, I would say, were the retail pharmacies. So we've launched nationally with Walmart and Walgreens early on and alongside them we could do phenomenal things like connect them to care, resources that they need and treatment options. Yeah, so we are B2, B2C.

00:40:26 - Scot Wingo
Yeah, so I go to, I go to Walmart a lot and I use their pharmacy, you know, at is this like in that portal I log into to reorder my prescription. There's like, hey, do you want to use like how am I introduced as a consumer to Pluto? Well, it's totally rebranded and it's like Walmart Health and like I don't even know you're behind the scenes or.

00:40:44 - Joy Bhosai
Yeah, yeah. So it depends on the customer. Sometimes will white label. But part of it is we provide health services, you know, health services behind the scenes too.

00:40:55 - Scot Wingo
Yeah.

00:40:56 - Joy Bhosai
I don't think people realize that most of health care is done by contractor, like contractors or subcontractors who work within a health system. Like take for example a hospital system. You'll have doctors who are actually coming from outside orgs that are specialists that like for instance, you'll have Raleigh Infectious Disease, for example, and they actually rotate and help out with multiple hospitals around the triangle, whether it's UNC or Duke or whatever. And so similarly we will work with enterprises to be part of those contracted orgs.

00:41:38 - Scot Wingo
And then there's a software component, but on the back end, is there like docs and PAs that are kind of.

00:41:44 - Joy Bhosai
There are. Okay, there are, yeah.

00:41:46 - Scot Wingo
And so is it like a marketplace where they're not really your employees, they're kind of like you're pulling them in or are they all your employees?

00:41:52 - Joy Bhosai
It's a blend. Yeah, it's a blend. And I would say for us it's really this dedication to trying to close care gaps for patients which is needed in health care. I mean the reason we're named Pluto is because we were told we were crazy and shooting for the moon. And the reason we were told that we were crazy is we wanted to bring and bridge both siloed data and care under one house. So could we bridge silo data, really good data science, clinical informatics and care gap closure under one house? Because to me that's what's broken in healthcare is like you have people on your clinical team who have no idea what your health history is or what you need or where you've been. So the question becomes, can we be that organization alongside you now? With a caveat that we are a highly tech enabled solution that uses a lot of SaaS principles to carry out what we do. But that's why it's hyper scalable.

00:42:52 - Scot Wingo
Yeah, yeah. Cool. So in the early days, you casually just knocked down Walmart and Walgreens. Those are pretty. That's pretty epic. Most founders kind of start small and go big. You're just like, I'm going to go elephant hunting. So you knock those down and then where'd you go from there?

00:43:11 - Joy Bhosai
Yeah, I mean, we will work with certain health systems and value based care groups. So I think part of this last year also has been a focus on integrating more AI into our platform. And so it's been steady in both the R and D and the commercial front. Yeah, yeah.

00:43:34 - Scot Wingo
Okay. And then did you raise another round in there or. That was the last round.

00:43:38 - Joy Bhosai
We did.

00:43:39 - Scot Wingo
Yeah.

00:43:39 - Joy Bhosai
Okay, we did.

00:43:40 - Scot Wingo
So you raised an A, I believe. Yeah. Would be our next.

00:43:43 - Joy Bhosai
Well, it was an extension of extension. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

00:43:46 - Scot Wingo
Seed plus.

00:43:46 - Joy Bhosai
Yeah, they call it. Yeah, yeah.

00:43:49 - Scot Wingo
There's always this friction. The entrepreneur kind of loves to like delay getting to the Alphabet and sometimes investor wants to go ahead and call it something. So.

00:43:56 - Joy Bhosai
Yeah, yeah. So we brought on more capital, which is a fund based out of New York, but the founders of the fund are from Raleigh.

00:44:07 - Scot Wingo
Oh, wow. So do they focus on the healthcare space or some.

00:44:12 - Joy Bhosai
Somewhat. Yeah, they're. They're a generalist fund, but yeah, very cool. But do they do have like healthcare and biotech focus as well?

00:44:21 - Scot Wingo
Yeah. Do they have a connection to Duke as well or just the Triangle area?

00:44:25 - Joy Bhosai
Actually one of the founders of the fund calls himself a tar devil, so Undergrad grad, kind.

00:44:33 - Scot Wingo
Yeah, I have the same thing.

00:44:34 - Joy Bhosai
Yeah, yeah. So yeah, yeah.

00:44:37 - Scot Wingo
The. Did. I should have asked this, but did DCP invest? They were. They were Dan and dcp kind of between your stories. I don't know if they. Maybe they were transitioning and they didn't get a shot.

00:44:47 - Joy Bhosai
Yeah, they were transitioning at the time.

00:44:49 - Scot Wingo
Yeah.

00:44:49 - Joy Bhosai
So go. Yeah.

00:44:52 - Scot Wingo
Okay. So then. So you did that and then what have you learned? So you kind of went from commercialization and here we are in 2024. Have you just kind of stayed on that narrow track or have you started to widen what you guys do?

00:45:06 - Joy Bhosai
We definitely widen what we do. I think as we learn more about what patients need, we. It's a natural progression of our product roadmap. It's like, how do we make it easier and better for patients to get the resources they need and close those gaps? So there are things that we've been adding like at home, lab testing. We're actually not the lab itself. Right. Just like if you think of a healthcare org, you can Order a lab, but you're not the lab itself. So we need, you just need to.

00:45:38 - Scot Wingo
Build the connective TPIs to those guys say patient. This needs this. Here's a network of them. Here's two. Which one's available? Who wants it? Like there's a lot of glue that has to happen in that and then when they get it, you need it to come back into your system. The results.

00:45:53 - Joy Bhosai
Exactly, exactly. So we've added a variety of ways to close those care gaps that we want to call out and address. So we've added an at home lab testing component in home phlebotomy, which is really, really cool.

00:46:12 - Scot Wingo
Is that the one where you can just like get it through your skin?

00:46:16 - Joy Bhosai
No. When someone imagine this, imagine us being able to say hey, hey Scott, you're missing a cholesterol check. You're not meeting the guidelines according to the, you know, heart associations. Let's, let's take care of this. Imagine being able to with a click of a button, have someone show up to your house the next day, draw blood while you're drinking coffee and have it be done with. And that's what we can do. So we've actually done this where people have wrote, wrote and they're like, oh my gosh, if every visit was like this, it's so easy, I'd like meet all the guy in lines.

00:46:57 - Scot Wingo
Yeah. I mentioned to you I always have these weird challenges and one of them is whenever I go to the drugstore, I won't say the name. They never, they can never find it. My other one is when I over, I go to one of the lab places, they never have me on the system. They draw the wrong blood and I have to go back. I've had like, I've had a failure rate of almost 100 of those places. So I, I always go, go for the draw from home because.

00:47:18 - Joy Bhosai
Yeah.

00:47:18 - Scot Wingo
And they're, they're much more, they're not on as fast as schedule. The other ones are like, you know, and for some reason my veins are hard to find and you know, they're like stabbing me six times. The @ home people are much more gentle on, on me.

00:47:28 - Joy Bhosai
Yeah. I mean and if you're, I mean I'd obviously offer like we could get you in part of our ecosystem but it's so convenient for people.

00:47:37 - Scot Wingo
It's a game changer.

00:47:38 - Joy Bhosai
It's a game changer. You don't have to go anywhere. So.

00:47:41 - Scot Wingo
Yeah, it's the amazonification of the healthcare system you mentioned earlier. Like access to clinical trials. Is that something you want to circle back, or is that not going to be on the roadmap for this? Or have you. Because you have all this? Have you. Are you able to kind of grease the skids on that?

00:47:55 - Joy Bhosai
Yeah, there's some nuances there. I would say that for us, we always want to support patients in understanding what their treatment options are. And I would say that, you know, if you're diagnosed with something and you need access to a trial, we absolutely want to support you to get to that, if it makes sense for your care. I mean, just last week, I'll give you an example. One of my high school friends unfortunately passed away from metastatic metastatic melanoma. But, you know, he found trials that helped, that were promising, that helped delay, extended, you know, his time with his family for years. And so if we could play a part in helping people access treatment options that make sense for them, you know, we will, we always will play a part in that. So we work with partners who are in that space, but it is part of the treatment options for individuals. So for us, it's all about taking a deep dive, understanding who the patient is, number one, and what resources we need to connect them to. We think of clinical trials as a, as one of the many resources that someone may need access to. Same thing like at home, lab testing or phlebotomy or, you know, talking to the toolbox. Yeah, exactly.

00:49:19 - Scot Wingo
Okay. And then what? You're always optimistic, but it seems like this is working. Like, what are some of the. When you, when you think of. I would use the term KPIs, that may not be like, what are the things? Like, do you see really good uptake with patients? Are there. Do you guys. Does the medical field care about customer? You know, we would use Net Promoter Score. There's some customer satisfaction measure out there, I'm sure. Are you, Are you starting to see the platform have impact? Customers happy buying more?

00:49:45 - Joy Bhosai
Absolutely. I mean, there's company. I'll. I'll kind of bifurcate this. There's company metrics and operational metrics, which I'm more than happy to share because we rocked it to the extent you're comfortable. Yeah.

00:49:58 - Scot Wingo
But directional stuff is good.

00:49:59 - Joy Bhosai
The traditional stuff is really good. But I would also say there's stuff that we care about, which is interesting in health care because you alluded to this earlier. It's like healthcare is so unique in that the user is often not the customer. Right. And so it's like, okay, maybe the patient in this entire interaction with them, it is the most important thing but ultimately, at the end of the day, someone else is paying for it, whether it's an insurance company, a healthcare stakeholder or whatever. So the metrics just become, you know, they're nuanced. So for us, we look at things both by company operations, but also patient experience. And so we look at the number of health care gaps we evaluate and close. We'll also look at the traditional customer retention, if you will, on the enterprise level, which I'm happy to say we've hit 100% customer retention over the last year and a pretty decent nrr.

00:51:07 - Scot Wingo
Nice spitting out in our.

00:51:09 - Joy Bhosai
Yeah. You know, you're a doctor and an.

00:51:12 - Scot Wingo
MPH and a sasser.

00:51:14 - Joy Bhosai
I've had to learn quickly. Yeah. But like so. And we're growing every quarter and so that, you know, it's, it's good.

00:51:22 - Scot Wingo
Yeah. NRR in the last two years has become the huge differentiator from south companies to kind of show, you know, not only are you, not only do you have low churn, but you know, customers are buying more from you and you're suite and, and maybe there's a usage component and that kind of thing.

00:51:36 - Joy Bhosai
Right.

00:51:36 - Scot Wingo
That's, that's a, that's good to have that. Well north of 100, so congrats on that.

00:51:41 - Joy Bhosai
Yeah. Thank you. Thank you.

00:51:43 - Scot Wingo
Yeah. So, you know, I know you need to go here in just like five minutes, but maybe, maybe because you're, you're kind of unique that you've come from a totally different field and jumped into this. What advice would you give? Like let's say a doctor, you know, 10 years younger than you came and said hey Joy, I'm thinking of, you know, I've got an idea. What do I need? You know, you know, what's some advice, maybe some do's and don'ts that you would share with someone.

00:52:06 - Joy Bhosai
Yeah.

00:52:07 - Scot Wingo
If you mentored them.

00:52:09 - Joy Bhosai
Gosh, there's so many. There's so much. Right. Like, and I'm still learning myself. I would say it's always helpful to stay true to the solution that you're solving rather than trying to fit the tech that you have or intend to build to and finding a problem. I think it's always helpful just to stick true to like what is the problem we're solving and not deviate. Appreciating that the tech may change or expand or whatever. I would also say because healthcare is so nuanced, just really be mindful of the incentives for commercial. Right. And understanding that when you're pitching to a client, the doctor voice is always important to come out. But it's also important to be mindful of, like, okay, this is a company that I'm pitching to and they need to hear about certain metrics. And so I think that's important as well.

00:53:11 - Scot Wingo
Interesting.

00:53:12 - Joy Bhosai
Yeah.

00:53:12 - Scot Wingo
What's the, what's the toughest pitch either Customer vc, without naming names that you've. You've gone through.

00:53:19 - Joy Bhosai
Oh, my goodness.

00:53:21 - Scot Wingo
Mine are always, mine are always in Massachusetts. I always run into the, the, you know, the stereotypical, you know, tough, tough Boston crowd.

00:53:30 - Joy Bhosai
Yeah. I think I've had a tougher time with pure SaaS. Investors who may not understand the healthcare space as much.

00:53:40 - Scot Wingo
They don't like the fact you're doing something on to help. Like, do you have people doing stuff that aren't. That aren't developers or salespeople? Yeah, I get that a lot. Yeah.

00:53:48 - Joy Bhosai
Yeah. I would say, you know, one piece of advice this ties back to, the advice piece is if you are fundraising, look for investors that share the same values and care about the same outcomes as you as much as you can, because that's going to matter. They're going to end up on your board. You know, you're going to be calling them, hopefully through good times and bad. Right. For advice and help. And so I think it's really important not to just look for money when you're a fundraising. But looking for the right partner. Yeah, I.

00:54:23 - Scot Wingo
It's almost like a husband. You're going to be with them for.

00:54:24 - Joy Bhosai
A long time for if go well.

00:54:28 - Scot Wingo
Yeah.

00:54:29 - Joy Bhosai
Yeah. And I would say I've been so lucky to have the board that I have and that can call them for anything and, you know, good, bad, ugly, beautiful. And I think that's one of the most important things is to do for yourself as a founder, is if you have the luxury of deciding who's on your board. Like, choose very, choose very wisely.

00:54:55 - Scot Wingo
So, yeah. You've been at this four years. Would you go back and tell four years ago, joy to jump in with do it. You got this or depends on the day. Do you question your sanity every day?

00:55:08 - Joy Bhosai
I do question my sanity every other day. That's why I said. But I absolutely love it. I would do it again. I would just, you know, I didn't realize the amount. I knew it was always hard work to be an entrepreneur, but didn't realize the amount of work. Like, you don't internalize it until you actually go through it.

00:55:26 - Scot Wingo
Yeah. And it's kind of. I always tell people this. It's lonely because you have a great board, but you really can't go complain to the board. Like, that's not. Not a good look. You know, you can. You can talk about big strategic things, but you can't be like, you know, oh, I had a bad day. Like, the board's like, no, don't really. Don't really want to hear that. Your significant other sometimes gets tired of it. They're like, all right, I get it. And then, so. So that's for having a good mentor or someone that's kind of, like, unconnected. That can be your. You know, can kind of like hear that out and have some empathy for you, but then tell you to get back in.

00:55:57 - Joy Bhosai
Go back in.

00:55:57 - Scot Wingo
Can help.

00:55:58 - Joy Bhosai
Yeah. Actually, what I found the most helpful is leaning on friends or finding a founder network has been such a lifesaver for me. I remember ugly crying one day. You know, these days will happen. As an entrepreneur and I rung my friends who are also CEOs, I was like, you guys, I just need to get on a group call, and they just pick you up and they're just like, you know what? This is fine. You got this. You know, it's just. It's so nice to have a group of friends who are in. It kind of may not be the same company or even the same field, but just like to support each other. And I think that's one of the best things you can do for yourself as a founder is finding a support network of people who understand the experience.

00:56:46 - Scot Wingo
Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. And then the, you know, we haven't even brought this up, but you're, you know, you're a female founder, obviously, and, you know, I think we over index in the triangle on that. You know, out of our little fund, we've got like 20, 25 female fund, you know, which is, you know, of 1, 30. It's not half. I would love for it to be half, but yeah, it is what it is. Um, do you have any. You know, doesn't seem like it slowed you down at all, but maybe you've had some weird interactions or what's your advice to other female founders out there?

00:57:14 - Joy Bhosai
I've definitely had a fair share of number of weird interactions, for sure. Um, but outside North Carolina, all the.

00:57:20 - Scot Wingo
North Carolina people are good.

00:57:22 - Joy Bhosai
It's like the outsiders, I think. You know, as a female founder, there's lots of challenges or things that I think you face, but at the end of the day, if your heart, you just gotta stick to your North Star and not let anything allow you to deviate. And there will be certainly a number of things that come up that want to get you off course, they want you to get off course, and you just can't let it. You know, it's a sacrifice and a commitment, but I think it all works out in the end if you just stick with it. And it sounds kind of, you know, it's not easy, but you can get through it.

00:58:10 - Scot Wingo
Awesome. Well, congrats on all the success. We're excited to be along for the ride, and it was really good to hear your backstory all chronologically.

00:58:18 - Joy Bhosai
Thank you.

00:58:18 - Scot Wingo
It's amazing what you've built and hope you have nothing but the best. Thanks for having me. Hope the baby comes on time and everything comes out.

00:58:28 - Joy Bhosai
I'm super stoked. She's being born in the Year of the Dragon. I feel appropriate to have a female dragon baby.

00:58:36 - Scot Wingo
She's going to be feisty.

00:58:38 - Joy Bhosai
All right.

00:58:39 - Scot Wingo
Thanks for coming.

00:58:40 - Joy Bhosai
Thank you. Thanks for having me. For more Tweener content, check out the Triangle Tweener time substack@tweener.substack.com. for more tweener content, check out tweenertimes.com thanks for listening, and we'll see you again soon on Triangle Tweenert Box.