Know All That! | Why Startups Need to Control Their Own Destinies

0 Comments/ in Startups, Uncategorized / by Jesse Draper

May 23, 2012

Jesse Draper is creator and host of The Valley Girl Show, through which she’s become a spokesperson for startups and helped pioneer the way of new media content distribution. Formerly a Nickelodeon star, Draper is now CEO of Valley Girl‚ where she oversees the show and runs technology blog Lalawag.com.

Silicon Valley is finally starting to have a real impact on the health care industry, and Practice Fusion, an Electronic Medical Records (EMR) company, is leading the way. In addition to replacing paper charts, its free, web-based product helps doctors with everything from appointment scheduling to prescription management. With major VC backing and vocal support from investors like Peter Thiel, the managing partner at Founders Fund and former CEO of PayPal, the company is positioned to scale quickly and dominate the digital health care revolution.

According to Ryan Howard, founder and CEO of Practice Fusion, the startup already has 150,000 users and 34 million patients under management. That represents about 10% of the U.S. population and averages out to about 70,000 patients a day. It’s also connected directly to over 70,000 pharmacies across the U.S.

SEE ALSO: Why Digital Medical Records Could Save Your Life

How has Howard managed this rapid growth? “Everything comes down to people,” he says. “The right person can figure out the right process and system to implement.” He also acknowledges that when you’re fundraising, growing and hiring at a fast pace, there’s a certain amount of blind trust involved. “If you meet a venture capitalist, and you meet them for three meetings, and they put cash into your company and come on board, it’s like going to Vegas and getting hitched. The flaw with that is that in Vegas you can get divorced, but with board members you can’t.”

In our interview, Howard advises aspiring entrepreneurs to “control your destiny by maintaining control.” According to Howard, that means “your composure, the way you address your team and work with them, the way you structure your board, all these things are super critical for the long term success of your company.”

Sounds like a healthy health care company to me!