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

This is from The Top Entrepreneurs Podcast by Nathan Latka:

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Quickly pick part of video to watch:
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

In Episode #575, Nathan interviews 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.

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

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